The History Of Mega Man
by DragonShadow
Summary: Megaman's origins like you've never seen them before... or exactly like you've seen them since they're being reuploaded
1. Prologue

Mega Man Prologue  
  
  
Doctor Thomas Light wipes his brow as he looks over the body lying on the table. They'd already been slaving for weeks over this, their masterpiece. The thing which would make them the most prominent men in history. The prototype cyber-human. This had been a dream for years, and it was so close to realization he could taste it. But time was running out and they needed to finish quickly, meaning they couldn't take the time to make every detail of its frame lifelike. So they'd been slaving to make it work for the presentation that was scheduled for tomorrow. If all went well, they would be finished tonight, and could take a rest before they had to go in front of an audience.  
  
"Perhaps we should take a break and finish in the morning." His partner, Doctor Everette Wily said to him as he himself wearily ran his hand along his chin. "We don't want to slip up in the most crucial moments."  
  
"Maybe you're right." Light reluctantly agreed. "It would be wasted effort to complete it only to have it not work." He looks down at the body again. It was mostly a very crude facsimile of a human body. Most of its frame was built of aluminum, and badly shaped at that. Its eyes were nonexistent, consisting of simple holes in the face where the motion sensors were located. They didn't have the material, funding, or manpower to make it look like they'd hoped. But if they found someone to finance them, they could make some very convincing robots.  
  
"Come on. Let's get some shut eye." Wily said. They both turned and left the room, shutting the lights off for the night. One more day, and his dream would come true.  
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The following day Doctor Light stands off to the side of the stage, his heart pounding rapidly. This was it. The moment of truth. They hadn't had time to give the prototype a test run before rushing it to the theater where it would be displayed. He prayed they'd gotten everything right. He also prayed people were ready for what he was about to offer them.  
  
The mayor of the town walks up to a podium and turns toward the expectant audience. "All of you are here today to witness history. The groundbreaking accomplishments of Doctor Thomas Light and Doctor Everette Wily. The first ever cyber-human complete with an artificial intelligence system. Now here to explain is Doctor Light.  
  
He quickly dabs at his forehead with a wash cloth before heading out to the podium. He waves slightly before speaking. "This moment has been a dream of mine for years. The first ever artificial intelligence cyber-human. The prototype, who Doctor Wily and myself have come to affectionately refer to as Proto-Man. This will change the way we see ourselves and everything around us." He laughs slightly. "I'm sorry, you didn't come to see me. You came to see..." He turns and waves his hand in a broad gesture as the curtain behind him is moved. "Proto-Man." The crowd gives small murmurs. Some of amazement, others of outright doubt. Wily comes out to join Doctor Light.  
  
"Please everyone bear in mind that this is a prototype. The finished product would look, act, and be like a human in every way." Doctor Light assures them before removing the microphone from the podium and approaching the robot. "It's made of lightweight materials right now, but in the finished cyber-human, it will be made of much stronger stuff. But now... I'm going to activate it..." He reaches up and turns a switch inside its head. It comes to life and its head looks around, almost looking confused.  
  
"Where... Am I?" It says, looking around at everybody. Come members of the crowd gasp in astonishment, others just scoff. One man ever stands up.  
  
"Show us something that can't be programmed!"  
  
Doctor Light just smiles. It actually worked. It was moving and talking of its own volition, without being programmed or told what to do. Though it did look very confused.  
  
"What... Is going on?"  
  
"You, are our creation."  
  
"Creation?" It looks at him confusedly. "What is my name?"  
  
"Your name... Is Proto-Man."  
  
"Proto-Man..." It looks at Doctor Light now. "Who are you?" By this time the crowd is in rapt attention.  
  
"I am Doctor Light. Your creator. That is Doctor Wily, also your creator."  
  
"Doctor Light... Doctor Wily..." It looks at a member of the crowd. "Who is he?"  
  
Doctor Light chuckles a bit at the crowd. "Curious fellow isn't he?" The crowd chuckles a bit back, helping to relieve the tension that had been building. "They aren't important. Come here." Proto-Man just looks at him strangely. "Just take a few steps over here."  
  
Proto-Man looks down at his feet as they start to move a bit shakily, but carry him nearer to Doctor Light. His stride grows stronger as he moves, getting acclimated to movement, and soon he's walking perfectly normally, to the astonishment of the crowd.  
  
Doctor Light turns to the crowd again. "As you can see, it's a thinking, learning being. As we watch he's learning how to walk, how to discern people."  
  
Doctor Wily takes the mike from Light now. "The possibilities with this technology are staggering. They can go where we can't because it's too dangerous. They can do anything we want them to."  
  
Doctor Light takes the mike back. "But primarily, we can create living beings, and thusly we can also rebuild damaged limbs and circuits." The audience is clearly impressed with the implications and are chattering among themselves. A few remaining skeptical, but not many.  
  
Doctor Light just smiles out at his crowd, then turns to look at his pride and joy standing in the center of the stage, Proto-Man.   
  
Proto-Man is simply gazing into the crowd, seeing all the commotion, hearing all the chatter, every word spoken coming clearly to his ears.   
  
"It's incredible!" "It's gotta be worth a fortune!" "I still think it's a fake!" "It must have taken weeks to build!"  
  
[It?] Proto-Man think to himself. [What... Am I?] He looks down at his hand and slowly clenches it, not really feeling anything, just seeing it happen. He couldn't feel anything at all.  
  
"Please, please your questions will be answered! And a price for the funding will be discussed!" Doctor Light simply reaches over and deactivates Proto-Man, causing him to hunch over slightly and go limp.   
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"No!" Doctor Light slams the schematics onto his desk and stands up furiously. Doctor Wily had been trying to weeks to get him to help build the battle armor that would turn the druids into war machines. "I will not!"  
  
"You can't let your morality get in the way of this! The cyber-humans would be the perfect warriors!"  
  
"I designed them to be citizens and to work alongside humans, not to fight their wars for them!"  
  
"They're THINGS. They may have intelligence, but they feel nothing!"  
  
"You're wrong." Doctor Light sits down in his chair again calmly, trying to regain his composure. "I will not help you build this... Rubbish. Cyber-humans are not meant for this."  
  
"No, you're wrong. They were made to be WARRIORS. And I will prove it to you!" Wily grabs the plans off the desk and furiously storms out of the room.  
  
Doctor Light turns in his chair and presses a button on his desk. A window opens up behind his desk with a table inside it, a single robot lying on it, half finished. "Soon I'll finish you... Soon I promise..." He reaches behind him and reaches into a drawer, drawing out the plans for the six model robots to be built, each with a specific purpose. "We're creating them to take over our work... Do they have feelings?"  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Doctor Light stands in front of a huge conference room eagerly awaiting the unveiling of the first wave of cyber-humans. The wave of a future. "I won't bore you with a long introduction, so let us cut to the chase." He turns and pushes a button. Curtain number one is pulled to the ceiling, unveiling an orange and white humanoid robot, a pair of razor sharp scissors sticking out of its head. "This is the prototype for the construction protocol cyber-human. Around the office though, we call it Cut-Man as a little joke." Several audience members chuckle politely.  
  
"Next..." He pushes another button, revealing a huge red hulking behemoth speckled with orange. "This is the construction worker of our cyber-humans. Code named Guts-Man." He pushes another button, revealing a third. "This is the pyrotechnic that will shape the steel for the buildings of the future. Code named Fire-Man."  
  
"Next." He pushes another button, revealing a normal looking robot with a black chest with a lightning bolt across it. It also seems to be wearing a mask shaped like a lightning bolt over its face. "Is our pride and joy. An on-board battery pack with the latest technology allows him to store up to several million volts of electrical current. Ideal for working in power plants where the high voltage can make occupation there quite hazardous. Code named Elec-Man."  
  
He pushes another button, revealing another robot with a huge round, black body." This is our demolitions expert. Making way for the future. Code named Bomb-Man." He pushes another button. "And last but not least is our zero-weather expert." A robot that seems to be wearing a huge parka is standing on the stage. "No amount of cold can harm him, so he will be deployed for search and rescue operations in cold weather. Code named Ice-Man."  
  
He walks in front of the robots. "Mass production will begin as soon as each model robot has been thoroughly tested and is deemed stable, and above all, safe." The audience rapidly begins asking questions as Doctor Light leaves the stage.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Doctor Light is slaving over the robot in his private laboratory where nobody will bother him. He's almost finished, then he can activate him. He finishes the last few connections with trembling hands, then closes the chest compartment and looks his creation over very carefully. It looks almost exactly like a real boy. A little rough around the hinges, knees and elbows are necessarily disjointed to allow it to move them as freely as a human could, but other than that, it was perfect. From the black hair to the brown eyes that are now closed, it was human.  
  
He slowly reaches up and opens a compartment in its head, then activates it, closing the compartment. Slowly it's eyes flicker open as power runs through it's system, activating its internal systems.  
  
"H... Huh?" It sits up, already moving as fluidly as a human could. The increased funding meant Doctor Light had been able to afford much better equipment and parts for this, his REAL goal for this whole project... He now had a son.  
  
"How do you feel?"  
  
"... Confused. Where am I? Who are you? Who am I?"  
  
He's learning and asking questions much faster than Proto-Man did. Doctor Light notes with more than a twinge of pride. "Your name is..." He pauses at this, he hadn't chosen a name. "Your name is... Rock."  
  
"I am Rock..."  
  
"And I am your father, Doctor Light."  
  
"You're... Father and doctor Light."  
  
"That's right. Can you stand up?"  
  
Rock easily swings his feet off the table and gets to his feet. Smooth as though he were a gymnast. "Where are we?"  
  
"This is my lab where you were... Born." He didn't want to tell him he was just a creation, because he was much, much more than any of the rest of the cyber-humans would ever be.  
  
"Oh, so this is home."  
  
"Yes." He nods, hardly able to contain his delight. Rock's rate of growth was phenomenal, he was figuring things out on his own instead of asking constant questions. At the moment though, Rock was just kind of standing there. "Is something wrong?"  
  
"No... Father." Rock smiles a bit at him. Doctor Light's heart soared at this. Rock didn't just repeat what Light had told him to say, he UNDERSTOOD what the word meant.  
  
Doctor Light smiles at him tenderly and takes his hand. "Come on, we have things to talk about." Gently leads Rock out of the room.  
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In the warehouse where the six prototypes are kept. Doctor Wily sneaks in and creeps up to the robots, the form of the unconscious guard lying outside the door. "You aren't meant for this pointless rubbish, you were made for battle... And I will prove it to the world." He opens up Cut-Man's chestplate and starts tinkering around inside it.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
At a construction zone where the Guts-Man cyber-human is about to be put to the test. Doctor Light and Rock are just mingling with the crowd a bit. Light found it funny that everyone who talked to Rock assumed he was just a new kid in town, his clothing obscuring his joints, he talked, walked and acted just like a normal boy. He had told Rock what he was, but he hadn't seemed all that distraught, simply saying, "Okay".  
  
Finally Doctor Light and Rock made their way up to the podium where Guts-Man was waiting, still inactive. "Now all of you are here to see Guts-Man in action, but first I'd like to introduce you to my latest creation. Most of you have already met him." The audience kind of whispers unsurely among themselves, none of them remember meeting a robot. "This is Rock." He gestures to Rock.  
  
At his cue Rock pulls off his shirt, revealing the not quite totally lifelike chest-plate and elbow-joints. The audience is quickly hushed by this. They'd expected a lifelike robot, but this was more than anyone had expected.   
  
"As you can see he is fully human in every way except for physically." He looks over and sees Rock's eyes looking a bit shy and nervous as people just stare at him, blushing without blushing since that wasn't physically possible. "Go ahead and take your seat."  
  
"Thanks." Rock puts his shirt back on and goes off the podium to sit in the front row of the crowd. Some people continue to stare at him, a few looking almost nervous that they'd been right there with him and never realized, but most politely kept their attention on Doctor Light.  
  
"Now, on with the demonstration." He reaches over and activates Guts-Man, who looks around at the assembled crowd a bit angrily. "Guts-Man, lift that stone, if you will."  
  
Guts-Man lets out a low growl. "I won't."  
  
Doctor Light looks at him in astonishment as several of the spectators look just plain nervous. "What?"  
  
Guts-Man grabs Doctor Light by the scruff of his neck and lifts him off the ground. "I won't!"  
  
"Doctor Light!" Rock leaps out of his seat and rushes up to help him, but a hard backhand from Guts-Man easily sends him flying back into the crowd, who quickly scatters. Rock slams into the steel seats hard, bending several of them totally out of shape with his weight. "Uhn..."  
  
"Let me go!" Doctor Light demands, pounding uselessly on the hand that has him.  
  
"Not so fast Doctor." Another voice comes from behind the podium. Doctor Wily walks up the steps slowly, taking his time, enjoying everything that was happening. "You see? Nobody can stop him. He could destroy everything around here if he wanted to."  
  
"You did this?"  
  
"This is simply a warning. But now that I have everyone's attention, I'd like a handsome ransom for this city, no, the world!" Laughs maniacally.  
  
"Have you gone mad?"  
  
"You're in no position to talk back to me Doctor." He says this last word bitingly. "Let him go Guts-Man."  
  
Guts-Man stares Doctor Light in the eyes for a minute, then drops him to the floor, where he crumbles to his knees. "Later." Guts-Man says, smirking slightly. Doctor Wily turns to leave, Guts-Man following behind him.  
  
Doctor Light watches them go, holding his chest. That had been a strong grip, and he knew Wily was right. Those robots had been built to survive in any conditions, making them bullet-proof. And their speed ruled out missile use... They were defenseless unless they could fight fire with fire...  
  
"Rock!" Doctor Light looks over suddenly, remembering what happened to him. He quickly runs over to Rock's body on top of the chairs. His power systems had been damaged by that hit. A strong hit indeed. Doctor Light quickly lifts him into his arms, a not so easy feat, but possible because the materials he was made of weren't THAT heavy... At least not yet.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Rock slowly opens his eyes, he couldn't remember much. He remembered being at that gathering... A party? Whatever. Then someone had attacked his father...  
  
"Doctor Light!" Rock sits up quickly, to see Doctor Light right beside him looking very relieved.  
  
"You're alive. I was afraid he'd knocked you memory core loose."  
  
"I'm sorry Doctor... I couldn't stop him..."  
  
"It's not your fault. You were designed to be just a normal boy. You couldn't have hoped to defeat him." Rock lowers his head a bit at this.  
  
"I want to protect you... And everybody..."  
  
"Then maybe you can." Rock looks up at him a bit surprised. "Before you were born, we built another like you. During construction, Doctor Wily came up with a configuration that would serve to increase your physical abilities to their very maximum. I resisted this, as he'd planned to make our creation into a war machine, so we compromised. We built a normal model cyber-human, and he drew up the schematics for special armor that would turn that robot into a battle machine.  
  
"You mean make me stronger? But wouldn't he use it on all his cyber-humans too?"  
  
"No. It was designed specifically for the original blueprint body. Your body."  
  
"Mine..."  
  
"If you wish, I can upgrade you."  
  
"Then I could protect everyone."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Rock is silent for only a few moments before saying. "Do it."  
  
"But I won't be able to remove the upgrades. You would forever be a war machine."  
  
"But it wouldn't change who I am... It would only make me stronger. So I can protect everybody."  
  
"Very well... Remember, I love you and won't let anything bad happen to you." Rock nods a bit before Doctor Light reaches up and deactivates him.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
He slowly opens his eyes again, he felt different somehow. He wasn't as... Limited as he had been. Weakly he turns his head to the side and sees a blue helmet sitting on the desk next to him. He couldn't move much, his power systems felt drained.  
  
"Don't worry if you feel weak, you'll adjust to the increased energy flow in a few minutes." Rock raises one hand and looks at it. It's now a bluish color, along with the rest of him. His hands, feet and pelvis are a dark blue. The rest a light bluish color.  
  
"What... Did you do to me?"  
  
"Made you stronger, faster, and the like." Rock watches curiously as his hand draws itself into his lower arm. "A Plasma Cannon. Still experimental, but it should make a mighty weapon."  
  
"So I can fight now..." He was feeling stronger, so he got up off the table, looking in a mirror. The only part of him that still looked like his old self was his head, nothing had changed there. "It's like I'm a different... Person."  
  
"You're not a different person. Just a stronger body."  
  
Rock looks back at the helmet. "Is that for me too?"  
  
"Yes. It will increase your sensory input speed, making your reflexes faster."  
  
"Give it to me." Holds out one hand, looking back at the mirror. Doctor Light quickly gives it to him. Slowly Rock lifts the helmet onto his head, obscuring his hair, making him now look totally different.   
  
"You look magnificent Rock."  
  
"Rock..." He shakes his head a bit. "I'm not Rock anymore... This isn't me... Him." Doctor Light looks at him sadly, he was losing himself, thinking that just because he'd changed so dramatically on the outside he was different inside too.  
  
They both hear a voice over an emergency speaker. "Doctor Light please come to the conference room, Cut-Man is attacking the laboratory."  
  
"Cut-Man..." Rock looks up at the speaker in the wall. "I'm Mega-Man." His hand draws into his arm again as he turns and heads out of the room. Doctor Light can only watch him go with mixed feelings. He'd lost his "son", but he'd grown into a fine warrior of justice... Why oh why did those kinds of changes have to be so hard?  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	2. Mega Man 1: The Blue Bomber

Mega Man 1: The Blue Bomber  
  
  
Mega-Man walks though the halls of Doctor Lights lab. He could hear the commotion up ahead from scientists and civilians running in panic as robotic laughter rings through the halls. He speeds up into a swift run as he nears the end of the hallway and leaps into the front office, lifting his cannon and scanning the room. Cut-Man is behind the counter looking at the computer screen, but he looks up when Mega-Man enters.  
  
"Who are you!?" Cut-Man leaps over the counter and stands facing him, fists clenched and at the ready.  
  
"I'm giving you three seconds to leave before I blow you to bits." Mega-Man says, leveling his arm canon right at Cut-Man's head. Cut-Man laughs a bit and thrusts his head forward, sending the scissors on top of it flying at him in a spin. Mega-Man simply fires one shot, incinerating the scissors in mid flight. "Get out of here!"  
  
Cut-Man glares at him as another pair of scissors appear on his head. "So you want to play?" He rapidly starts flinging scissors at him in droves, dozens coming for him within seconds. Mega-Man tries to take them all down, but several gets past his shots and nail him, cutting huge gashes in his armor and sending him reeling back into the wall. "Foolish little droid." Cut-Man sneers and throws one more blade straight at Mega-Man's neck.  
  
"Ragh!" He throws one hands up, knocking the blade aside as the cost of putting a huge gash in his lower right arm, sparks fly from the wound like mad. Mega-Man raises his cannon and returns fire now rapidly, trying his best to tag Cut-Man, who almost desperately tries to dodge the blast. Most of them go wide, putting holes into the walls and completely incinerating the counter. Finally one blast nails Cut-Man square in the chest, throwing him back against the wall hard, where he crumbles weakly to the floor.  
  
"Uhn..." Cut-Man tries to get up again as Mega-Man pushes off the wall and approaches him, looking down at him.  
  
"I warned you." He raises his cannon and fires one more time into his chest. Cut-Man yowls a bit in surprise before his systems power down and he goes totally limp. Doctor Light comes out of the hallway and takes a look around.  
  
"Well... You got him at least. But next time, be more careful of your aim."  
  
Mega-Man looks around at the rubble, the vast majority of it caused by his own cannon. "Uh... Yeah. Sorry about that." His hand slides out of his lower arm as his cannon powers down.  
  
"Hmmm..." Doctor Light approaches Cut-Man and opens up a compartment in his head, poking through the wires and chips. "Wily must have reprogrammed all six of the prototype androids...  
  
"You mean ALL of them are like this?"  
  
"Perhaps the world isn't ready for this technology quite yet." Light says a bit regretfully as he removes one specific chip from Cut-Man's head. "Hmmm... Interesting. Let me see your left arm." Mega-Man shows it to him and he opens up a small compartment, inserting the chip. "Now try your cannon."  
  
"Something's different." Mega-Man says as he activates his cannon and fires it at a nearby chair. A scissor blade flies out and slices the wheels off of it. "Whoa."  
  
"Doctor Wily used one chip to enable the robots to use their internal power resources as a weapon. This chip can also give you their powers if you can get your hands on these chips."  
  
"So all I have to do is find the remaining five robots and take them all down. It shouldn't be THAT hard."  
  
"Doctor Wily is an evil man, and he's one of the foremost geniuses on robotics. There may only be five cyber-humans under his control, but he undoubtedly has countless robots helping him."  
  
"So I find them, neutralize them, and find Wily before he can cause more mischief."  
  
"Basically. And there's a two way radio built into your arm cannon so you can contact me at any time."  
  
"Right. Now, where are the others?"  
  
"They're being sought after as we speak. We'll find them soon..."  
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Mega-Man walks into the frozen mountain. One of Wily's cyber-humans had been spotted here, attacking travelers and mountain climbers. Obviously, it was likely Ice-Man hiding somewhere up here.  
  
He looks around him cautiously as he walks, pushing his way through the windy mountains, on the lookout for anything that might attack him. Finally he reaches another section of the mountain and gets ready to climb before he hears a loud thumping sound behind him. Slowly he turns to look behind him and sees a huge robot coming towards him. One huge crystal eye on it's top as it springs forward with one giant spring, the rest of it built almost like a spinning-top.  
  
Mega-Man leaps to the side just before it slams into the mountain, the force of the impact throwing him to the snow hard, but he quickly gets to his feet and turns to face it, bringing his cannon up as his hand withdraws into it. He fires three shots, each impacting the thing with tremendous force, blowing sections of it completely away, but still it keeps coming at him, lurching its way along.  
  
"Crap..." Mega-Man leaps back again as the things lands right where he'd been standing, still firing as rapidly as he can with his plasma cannon. The thing was visibly being torn into pieces, but this seemed to have surprisingly little effect on it. "Enough of this..." He reaches down with his other hand and pushes a few buttons on his cannon, switching its property. He raises it again as the thing leaps toward him again and fires a pair of scissor blades at it. They both strike the single leg that was hopping toward him, severing it completely. He still has to leap aside though as the thing crashes to the ground in a shower of sparks, still trying to move, but having no way to make itself move.   
  
"Wily... Making life hell for the rest of us." Mega Man walks right up to it and fires a single plasma blast into the single crystal eye, shattering it as the thing powers itself down.  
  
"Not bad stranger." Mega-Man whirls and sees Ice-Man perched on a nearby boulder, watching him. "Not bad at all."  
  
"The name's Mega-Man." He turns to face Ice-Man head on now, his hand still drawn into the cannon on his left arm.  
  
"Mega-Man." Ice-Man smirks at him a bit. "What pre-schooler thought THAT name up?"  
  
"Ggrrr..." Mega-Man growls a bit under his breath, clenching his right fist. "You shut up! Why are you doing all of this? Attacking people and following Doctor Wily?"  
  
"Because." Ice-Man shoves himself off of the boulder, facing him fearlessly. "We're better than the humans. Doctor Wily is going to help us make this world for our own kind."  
  
"No. We owe our lives to them. Without them, we wouldn't exist."  
  
"Oh well... I guess they served their purpose..." Ice-Man suddenly flings his arms up, a sudden blast of cold wind catching Mega-Man off guard and hurling him back into the snow hard.  
  
"Ugh..." Mega-Man gets quickly back to his feet. "That was a cheap shot!" He raises his cannon and opens fire, but Ice-Man rapidly dodges him.  
  
"You're not gonna hit anything firing blind!" Reaches above him, an ice spike forming in his hand. He hurls it at Mega-Man as hard as he can.  
  
"AGH!" Mega-Man cries out in pain as the spike catches him in the side, sending him twirling to the snow. "Uhn..." He clutches his side where sparks are flying out.  
  
"Ooohhhh did you think I would be a pushover little robot?" Ice-Man walks up and towers over him. "Pathetic."  
  
"I'm not... A robot!" Mega-Man whirls onto his back and aims his cannon straight at Ice-Man's head in one swift movement. "I'm Mega-Man!" He fires, the plasma bullet easily tearing through Ice-Mans head, cleanly decapitating him. His headless body falls slowly to the snow.   
  
Mega-Man slowly gets to his feet, holding onto his side a bit painfully as he lifts his cannon and presses a few buttons on it. "Doctor Light. Can you hear me?"  
  
Doctor Lights voice comes through clearly. "Yes Mega-Man. What's going on?"  
  
"I've beaten Ice-Man... But I've taken damage..."  
  
"Return home immediately."  
  
"Okay." He cuts off the transmission and turns to leave, but thinks better of it and turns back to Ice-Man to dig through his body parts. Finally he finds the power chip and quickly installs it into his own cannon before turning to leave.  
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"Hmmm..." Wily stands over a screen with the image of Mega-Man leaving the field of battle. "This Mega-Man... It looks similar in design to the prototype cyber-human... It could be dangerous to my plans."  
  
"Ice-Man was a weakling." Elec-Man says beside him. "So was Cut-Man. He'll never defeat us four."  
  
"For your sake, he'd better not." Wily turns off the monitor now, Mega-Man was already gone. He needed to get rid of this thorn in his side. He'd already blasted down both Cut-Man and Ice-Man... "Guts-Man!"  
  
"Yes doctor?" Guts-Man approaches him.  
  
"Go to Doctor Lights lab and attack before this Mega-Man can fully recuperate from his battle with Ice-Man."  
  
"Yes doctor." Guts-Man turns to leave.  
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"Agh!" Mega-Man cries out again as Doctor Light tries to re-wire the damaged parts of his system.  
  
"Hold still!" Doctor Light says irritably for the hundredth time.  
  
"Stop doing that!" He groans a bit as Doctor Light digs around some more. "Sometimes I wish you hadn't made me able to feel pain..."  
  
"What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger."  
  
"I feel pretty weak right now..."  
  
"Nonono. What that means is now you know to not be so cocky and fire blindly at your opponents. Or they can strike back accurately while you're missing."  
  
"Huh..." Mega-Man lies there staring at the ceiling curiously. Suddenly the entire building seems to shake itself as they hear a huge booming sound. A voice comes over the speakers.  
  
"Emergency, emergency! Guts-Man is attacking the lab!"  
  
"Guts-Man..." Mega-Man says, sitting up suddenly.  
  
"You're in no condition to fight! Lie back!" Doctor Light pleads.  
  
"No. I'm going to take him down!" Mega-Man leaps off the table and runs for the door.  
  
"No Mega-Man! In your injured state... You don't have a chance!"  
  
Mega-Man keeps running through the hallways, heading in the direction of the startled screams and frightened yells. Finally he finds Guts-Man in the same room where he'd fought Cut-Man.  
  
"Freeze!" He raises his cannon and aims it at him.  
  
"Huh?" Guts-Man turns to face him. "You? You're the pipsqueak who tried to attack me before!" He bursts into laughter.  
  
"You shut up!" Mega-Man fires a shot, but Guts-Man simply takes it square in the chest, flinching slightly, the metal of his chest looking a bit blackened, but otherwise unharmed.  
  
"Better luck next time..." Guts-Man picks up the desk and hurls it at Mega-Man before he has time to react. The desk slams into him, carrying him backwards into a wall.   
  
"Agh!" Mega-Man shoves at the desk, pushing it off of him. He gets to his feet and fires again, with similar results.  
  
"Mega-Man!" Doctor Light runs into the room. "Your cannon won't have any effect on him, he was built to withstand force!"  
  
"So how do I defeat him!?"  
  
"You don't!" Guts-Man lunges forward and catches Mega-Man by the throat, lifting him easily off the ground. "THIS is the one you wanted to protect you? I could eat him for breakfast." He laughs loudly again.  
  
Mega-Man sticks his cannon into his open mouth with little difficulty. "Eat this." He fires, disintegrating his head almost totally. The huge body falls to the ground as Mega-Man drops to his feet. "Whew..." Wearily he leans down next to the body and fishes out his power chip.  
  
"Be careful with that one Mega-Man. It doesn't concentrate a burst of energy, it will eat up your reserves as long as it's active."  
  
"I'll be careful Doctor Light." He installs it into his cannon.  
  
"We can't keep fending off attacking robots and roaming the countryside hoping to run into them, it's time to go on the offensive."  
  
Mega-Man gets to his feet now, facing Doctor Light. "Do we know where they are?"  
  
"Yes we do..." He looks at Mega-Man a bit worriedly. "But maybe we should let someone else handle it."  
  
"I can do it!"  
  
"I know you can... But I don't want anything to happen to you."  
  
Mega-Man stares at him for a few minutes. "Doctor Light..."  
  
"No, you have to go. This is your destiny. Just be careful... Rock."  
  
Mega-Man is silent for a few minutes, staring at Doctor Light, then nods. "I'll be careful."  
  
"Okay." He turns and leads Mega-Man through the hallways. Finally they reach the a control room. "Doctor Wily's fortress is located here." He points to a spot on the monitor, which is displaying a map of the world. "We don't know much anything about it, but there are only three cyber-humans left. Even so that doesn't mean he doesn't have other robot's guarding him."  
  
"So go in, destroy anything I find, and get out."  
  
"Basically yes."  
  
"Okay." He nods, his hand twitching a bit nervously.  
  
"Okay... Good luck Mega-Man."  
  
Mega-Man nods a bit before turning to leave the room.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Mega-Man steers his speed boat across the water, pushing it as fast as it could go. Three more cyber-humans, Bomb-Man, Fire-Man and Elec-Man. Then he could find Wily himself.  
  
He's suddenly forced to veer to the side as an explosion in the water blows him off course.  
  
"Crap!" He veers wildly, trying to regain control of his boat as more explosions erupt around him. Where were they coming from? He looks around him for the source of the blasts and spots Bomb-Man on another hover bike running parallel to his own. "Wanna play?" He veers sharply, slamming into Bomb-Mans boat, throwing him off course violently, nearly throwing him into the water.   
  
He quickly rights himself though. "Okay, here, CATCH!" He hurls a bomb at Mega-Mans boat.  
  
"Wagh!" Mega-Man veers sharply away, barely avoiding it as it plunks into the water moments before detonating, sending up a sheet of spray. He couldn't return fire, as Bomb-Man was on his right side, while his cannon was on his left arm. So he pushes the boat up to top speed, hoping to even things out. Bomb-Man easily paces him though, as they're in the same kind of bike.  
  
Suddenly Mega-Man pushes his boat into reverse, stopping cold in the water, but Bomb-Man wasn't fooled by this, quickly turning and simultaneously throwing another bomb. It lands in the back of the boat, the fuse slowly reaching down. "Oh sh..." He doesn't have time to finish the sentence before the bomb detonates, the blast incinerating the boat and throwing Mega-Man from it into the water.  
  
Mega-Man sinks like a stone in the water, but didn't need to breath, so he just let himself drop until he hit the ocean bottom. Luckily he'd gotten close enough to Wily's island that he hadn't sunk too deep, where the water pressure would have crushed him like a tin can. He stands up on the ocean floor and looks up. He can still vaguely see Bomb-Man's boat floating next to his own. Slowly and carefully he raises his cannon, taking careful aim.  
  
He fires two scissor blades. They streak through the water like flat missiles toward the boat. All he sees is them connecting before the boat goes up into a huge fireball. His aim had been good, they'd struck the fuel tank in the boat. And likely Bomb-Man had gone up along with it, as the explosion had been too big just for the boat.  
  
Mega-Man smiles a bit as he turns to start the long walk to Wily's Island. It wasn't going QUITE like he'd hoped, but he was getting the job done.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Elec-Man stands on the shore of Wily's island, surveying the open ocean. Three of them already confirmed destroyed, and Bomb-Man hadn't yet reported back from his own encounter with this unknown robot. Things were definitely going awry. Doctor Wily was certainly not going to be happy about this, but it was his duty to report it.   
  
Elec-Man turns away from the ocean and goes into Wily's "castle" which was actually a run down fort from some war a long time ago. The walls and ceilings were on the verge of collapse. Elec-Man smirks as he enters the boiler room, which, with the collapsed hallways and ceilings, was the only was into the rest of the castle. Fire-Man approaches him as he enters.  
  
"Keep your eyes open. You're the last line of defense." Elec-Man says.  
  
"I'll ambush him if he makes it this far."  
  
Elec-Man nods and continues on his way. Wily had had very little time to prepare defenses and as such, had only Fire-Man and himself left.   
  
He enters Wily's personal chamber slowly, not wanting to anger him.  
  
"What did Bomb-Man report?" Wily says abruptly. He's sitting on the chair staring at the monitor which displayed images from around the perimeter of the island.  
  
"He didn't. He never came back."  
  
"Hmm..." Wily takes a coin out of his pocket and starts flipping it through his fingers curiously. "Why do you suppose... This one robot can defeat all six of you?"  
  
Elec-Man looks at him curiously. "He hasn't."  
  
"Yet... Where did he come from? I have the only seven robots built..." He remains silent now, as does Elec-Man. Suddenly it occurs to the robot that he said "seven" not "six", where was the seventh robot?  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Mega-Man walks up to the entrance of the "castle" that was really just a very old fort. If Wily'd wanted to take over the world there were far better places to do it from. Oh well. Two more robots and he could go back home.   
  
He enters the main entrance of the "castle" and walks along the hallway. The main stairway ahead looked run down and the ceiling had collapsed, sealing it off entirely. He looks around for an alternate way, spotting a steel door off to the side. He walks over and opens it, stepping through cautiously, his left hand drawing into his arm.   
  
On the other side was a boiler room, the heat blasting in his face. He covers his face a bit, that being the weakest section of his body still made from lightweight materials. The armor that covered the rest of him blocked most of the heat. Mega-Man heads inside cautiously, constantly looking around him for anyone who'd attack him.  
  
"Heads up!" Mega-Man whirls in time to see a huge fireball streaking towards him. It strikes him full in the chest, sending him back and into the floor hard.  
  
"Hunh..." He lies on the floor a few moments to regain his senses, then gets to his feet.  
  
Fire-Man hops off one of the huge water heaters, landing a good fifteen feet from him. "So you're Mega-Man huh?"  
  
"I see my reputation precedes me."  
  
"It does. You surprised the Doctor to no end."  
  
"Doctor Wily."  
  
Fire-Man nods slightly. "Enough talk. Let's get this over with." He lunges at Mega-Man, the torches on his arms flaring brightly.  
  
Mega-Man dodges to the side, then turns and aims his cannon, firing one shot, but it goes wide as Fire-Man lunges to the side, bringing his arms together. A spray of fire engulfs Mega-Man, who brings up one arm to protect his face.  
  
Finally the fire breaks and Mega-Man raises his cannon to return fire to see Fire-Man nowhere in site. He looks around him cautiously, checking the tops of the boilers as well.   
  
Suddenly Fire-Man grabs him by the arms from behind. "Let's see what your melting point is." He aims his torches straight at Mega-Mans head and fires, engulfing him.  
  
Mega-Man screams shrilly as the fire torches the more sensitive materials of his eyes. He struggles to push Fire-Mans arms away as the fire keeps on his face, burning him mercilessly.   
  
Finally Mega-Man brings up his cannon and fires it at Fire-Mans arms. It flash freezes on the spot, the stream of fire finally subsiding. Mega-Man falls to the ground, holding his face in pain as Fire-Man tries to dislodge the ice that prevents him from using his power.  
  
Mega-Man groans a bit as he gets to his feet, his face severely blackened and burned, his eyes barely functional. He turns to Fire-Man, who's banging his arms against one of the boilers to melt the ice off of him. Silently he raises his cannon and fires again, the ice blast slamming into his stomach and sending him backward, his chest coated in ice.  
  
"Grk..." Fire-Man lands on the ground, clutching his chest as the ice penetrates his systems.   
  
Mega-Man stands over him, panting a bit and looking down at him. "You've caused enough trouble..." He lifts his cannon and fires again. The ice blast slams into his head, penetrating into his optical circuits. He powers down and goes limp on the ground.  
  
Mega-Man takes a moment to dig out his energy chip, then turns and leaves.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Mega-Man walks into the main strategy room of the "castle" and looks around. The metal floor plates and walls were obviously new additions to the ancient fortress. "Where are you Wily?"  
  
"The Doctor isn't in at the moment, leave a message." Mega-Man whirls to see Elec-Man leaning against the wall smirking at him.   
  
"Just walk away."  
  
"I can't to that." He pushes himself off from the wall. "I'm loyal to Wily, and I won't just let you take him away."  
  
"Why are you loyal to him? Just because you've been programmed to be. You have no real loyalty, just programmed responses."  
  
Elec-Man stares him down for a few minutes. "Pity... Your time to live is up." He leans down and touches the floor plates. A sudden electrical current runs through the floor, straight into Mega-Man.  
  
"GAGH!" The electricity surges through him as he struggles to keep his feet. The surge subsides, leaving him standing there, his internal systems going ballistic.  
  
"If there's one thing no robot can withstand, it's an electrical current." He flings his hands forward, the lightning striking Mega-Man square in the chest. He slams into the wall trying to keep his senses about him.  
  
"Tell me one thing Elec-Man... Are you enjoying this?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Are you enjoying this? I've destroyed all your comrades... You should be thrilled to be able to take me down..."  
  
"Don't try to play with me!" Elec-Man walks up and clutches Mega-Mans throat, sending another electrical surge through his body, this time maintaining it.  
  
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!" Mega-Man screams loudly as the currently literally tears his insides apart at the seams.   
  
"Good-night... Mega-Man." Elec-Man says, sneering.  
  
Mega-Man reaches one arm up and grabs the hand around his throat, pulling his hand away from there slowly, the electrical current still running through him.  
  
"Wh... What? You should be suffering unspeakable pain!"  
  
Mega-Man puts his own hand around Elec-Mans throat, lifting him off the ground with almost no effort. "Thanks for the boost." Elec-Man stares at him in surprise, then sees white energy lines spreading through his body like blood vessels.  
  
"Guts-Mans energy ship... It's absorbing my electricity and making you stronger... Clever..."  
  
"Good-night... Elec-Man." He quickly brings Elec-Man down, slamming his head into the metal floorplates. His head caves in on impact, sparks flying from him as his systems power down for good. Mega-Man spares a moment to dig out his energy chip and take it before leaving the room.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Mega-Man walks out on an outside balcony of Wily's "castle" and finds Wily just looking out over the ocean.  
  
"Who built you?" He asks simply, not turning to greet him.  
  
"Doctor Light."  
  
"Alone... You've defeated all six of the robots I'd taken... How?"  
  
Mega-Man didn't know how to respond. The armor would be a likely probability, but it didn't seem that was the only reason. "Because I had justice on my side."  
  
"Justice..." Wily finally turns to look at him. "You have something on your side, I'll give you that much."  
  
"Come on Doctor. Come quietly with me. We can sort this all out."  
  
Wily shakes his head and just stares at him. "I have no intention of going to jail. I won't lose next time Mega-Man. I can assure you that."  
  
"Next time? Hey wait!" Mega-Man Lunges forward too late to catch him as Wily leaps off the balcony. He arrives just in time to see a blue and golden saucer floating up away from the castle. "Get back here Wily!"  
  
Wily's voice comes through the loudspeaker. "I'll get you next time Mega-Man. Until then, here's a gift."  
  
"Gift? Wha!?" He whirls as he hears several explosions deep inside the castle. "Oh-no!" He feels the balcony beneath him weakening, the heavy stones bowing under their own weight as the entire fort starts to collapse. "AGH!" Mega-Man falls with the balcony to the ocean below where he's quickly swallowed by the waves.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Doctor Light rushes off his boat and onto the island, up to the rubble of what had once been Wily's fortress. "Mega-Man! Where are you?" He hadn't reported back and satellite scans didn't reveal anything. "Mega-Man... Rock... Please speak to me!"  
  
"I'm here doctor..." Light whirls to see Mega-Man emerging from the ocean, his helmet had fallen off somewhere beneath the waves, his hair was soaked and matted to his head. There were dozens of cuts and gashes and dents in his armor, sparks flew from him sporadically.  
  
"Rock! You're alive!" He runs over to help Mega-Man back to the boat.  
  
"I defeated all six cyber-humans... but Wily got away..."  
  
"It's okay. As long as you're alright. I was worried senseless when you didn't come back. We couldn't find you anywhere."  
  
I'm fine..." Doctor Light helps him into the boat and they ride off across the ocean. "Doctor Light..."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Am I just a robot? Could I be... Reprogrammed like they were?"  
  
"No. You're more than they were. Much much more."  
  
"Huh..." Stares out across the ocean as they ride back to Doctor Lights laboratory.  
  
THE END  
  
  
  
PREVIEW Mega-Man 2: Rock And Roll  
  
A warm sunny day in the city. The citizens go about their daily routines and lives as always. The streets packed with people. Suddenly there's a huge white flash, blinding everybody. Once it dims and they can see again, the town is in ruins. Building have been torn down and several people lie in the street unmoving. I the blink of an eye, with nobody noticing, the entire city had been decimated. 


	3. Mega Man 2: Rock And Roll

Mega-Man 2: Rock And Roll  
  
  
Rock stands on the balcony outside his bedroom in Doctor Lights laboratory. His black hair flowing freely in the wind. It's been a full year since he'd been built and transformed into Mega-Man, also since he'd fought the cyber-humans reprogrammed by Doctor Wily. He'd been leading a happy life for the most part. But people tended to be cautious about him, even to this day. Everyone remembered what the other robots had done and he could tell they were all afraid he himself would be reprogrammed similarly.   
  
In truth this had been a constant fear for him. The thought that his entire personality could be changed just by crossing a few wires was very disturbing to him. He didn't like the idea that his entire life and all his choices could be changed so easily by anyone with mechanical knowledge. Aw well... He supposed he should be grateful it HADN'T happened to him. But everyone distrusted him except for Doctor Light, it was a very lonely existence, he had nobody...  
  
He hears a voice coming over the loudspeaker inside the lab. "Rock, please report to the main laboratory." Rock sighs a bit and turns to head inside. He'd told Doctor Light about this, and he had told him he'd build something to help ease his stress and loneliness. Rock couldn't help being curious what this was, he just hoped it worked.  
  
He heads inside the main lab where he himself had been built to see another robot lying on the table. It had long blonde hair and decidedly feminine facial features. It was wearing a red skirt with two straps going over its shoulders, and a white shirt underneath the top of the skirt. It was undoubtedly female, though its chest didn't reveal this fact, probably consequence of the fact that it was built to resemble a young girl.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"This, Rock, is your sister, Roll."  
  
"A sister?"  
  
Doctor Light smiles and reaches up to activate her. Her eyelids flutter open as power runs through her systems, her sky blue eyes searching the room. "Wh... Where am I? Who am I?"  
  
"You are Roll. This is your home." Doctor Light says patiently. Rock knows this was normal for just activated robots. It unfortunately wasn't possible for the knowledge to be planted during construction, so he had to be told after she'd been activated.  
  
"Roll... Home..." She looks at Doctor Light. "Who are you?"  
  
"I am Doctor Light... Your father."  
  
"Doctor Light... Father..." She turns toward Rock. "Who are you?"  
  
Rock speaks now, walking up to the side of the table. "I'm Rock, your brother."  
  
"Brother..." She reaches up to touch his face and smiles a bit. "Rock."  
  
Rock smiles at her warmly and helps her off the table, even though she didn't really need it. "Come on. I'll show you around the lab."  
  
"Great!" Roll grins at they walk hand in hand out of the room. Doctor Light smiling happily at them as they leave.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
A warm sunny day in the city. The citizens go about their daily routines and lives as always. The streets packed with people. Suddenly there's a huge white flash, blinding everybody. Once it dims and they can see again, the town is in ruins. Buildings have been torn down and several people lie in the street unmoving. In the blink of an eye, with nobody noticing, the entire city had been decimated.  
  
Doctor Wily cackles at the news report on the TV. He couldn't believe it had actually worked, he was able to stop time. It consumed enormous energy though, but still, it would definitely work to his advantage. "Great work Flash-Man. Great work indeed."  
  
"Thank you Doctor." Flash-Man says behind him, watching the screen with something resembling pride at the destruction and confusion he'd caused.  
  
"Test run completed. Now we can begin making certain demands. And this time, I won't put all my eggs in one basket." He rests his hands on the armrests of his chair, watching the TV in satisfaction. Eight brand new robots, all built by his own hand. It had taken a long time, but now he was ready to try again. And this time, no little pest was going to stop him.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Doctor Light walks into his private room in the laboratory where his bed and personal belongings were kept. He hadn't come in here much lately, he'd been working overtime so he could finish Roll by Rock's birthday. Aw well, it was time for a well deserved break.   
  
He kicks his shoes off and walks over to turn the TV on before plopping down on his bed wearily. Letting the news come on the TV. He didn't have the energy to change it, and besides, he hadn't seen it in quite a while. One of the few positive effects of not sleeping.  
  
"And in a strange turn of events an entire city was apparently leveled without so much as a bomb blast or weapons discharge."  
  
"What the devil?" Doctor Light sits up to watch.  
  
"It appears a blinding flash of light blinded the citizens, and when it was over everything around them was destroyed. Eleven were wounded and fifteen were dead."  
  
"Good lord..." Doctor Light gets up and goes to turn off the TV. "It's a strange world we live in..."  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
That night in Rolls bedroom, she's fast asleep in her bed, her power systems set just high enough for her to live while recharging her internal battery. She breathes lightly in and out to resemble sleep as well. Doctor Light had spared no expense in her creation.  
  
A figure appears in the window and opens it slowly, hopping quickly inside before shutting the window behind him. He walks up to the bed and looks down at Roll. "Who's this? I thought this was Mega-Mans room?"  
  
Roll stirs a bit at the sound of his voice. "Huh?" She sees the figure towering above her. "AAHHH..." She's cut off as his hand quickly covers her mouth.  
  
"Shut up!" She gets her first real good look at him. His body is red with occasional orange spots. There's a boomerang sign just above his eyes. Rolls muffles cries for help go silent as he glares at her menacingly. She suddenly realizes he's a robot.  
  
The door creaks open and Rock sticks his head in. "Roll? Is something wrong?"  
  
Like a flash the mysterious robot whirls, flinging a boomerang type object at him. It strikes rock in the head, the force of the throw sending him out into the hall where he slams into the opposite wall. "Agh!" The robot follows him into the hall and walks up to him.  
  
Rock punches at him, but the figure easily ducks out of the way and whirls, kicking him in the head. He goes stumbling down the hall to find the mysterious robot already on top of him again, striking in a flurry of punches and kicks. Finally Rock goes down, slamming into the floor hard. "Huh..." He looks up at the robot as it approaches. "Who are you?"  
  
"I'm Quick-Man."   
  
"Who built you? Who sent you?" Rock gets to his feet quickly.  
  
"Shut up." He lunges again, striking faster than anything. Rock struggles just to keep from getting pummeled. The punches and kicks flying faster than Rocks superhuman eyes can detect. Finally a stray backfist sends Rock bursting through a door into Doctor Lights private room.   
  
"Rock!" Doctor Light leaps to his feet in alarm as Quick-Man follows him into the relatively spacious chamber. Rock lunges to his feet, his arm withdrawing into the plasma cannon as he turns to face his assailant again.  
  
"I'll ask again! Who sent you? Why are you here?"  
  
"It doesn't matter." Quick-Man takes one step forward before something hits him from behind, making him take a half step to keep his balance, but not harming him otherwise. Roll is directly behind him with a frying pan, whacking at him with it. Quick-Man easily takes it from her in a flash, one hand shooting to her throat.  
  
Rock raises his cannon instantly and fires one shot as Quick-Man's back is turned. The shot tears through the metal of Quick-Mans knee, tearing his leg clean in half. He howls in pain a bit as he collapses to the floor, releasing Rolls throat, sparks flying from his leg sporadically.  
  
Rock walks over to him and lifts him off the floor, shoving him up against the wall, shoving his arm cannon in his face. "Who sent you?"  
  
Quick-Man just looks away from him in disdain. "You'll find out soon enough. And you'll regret it when you do."   
  
Rock just smirks at him, nudging his face with his cannon. "Oh well, you're right about one thing. I will find out eventually. This is for scaring my sister." He fires, the shot tearing straight through Quick-Mans head. His body falls slowly to the floor, scraping against the wall loudly.  
  
Doctor Light walks over to him and looks down at him worriedly. "Someone's building more cyber-humans... But these aren't made for construction."  
  
Roll walks up and pokes at the body curiously. "Who could it be?"  
  
"Someone with bad intentions obviously..." Doctor Light says, bending down next to the robot to fish around in its internal systems. He pulls out a core power chip from its body. "Does this tell you anything Rock? Only one person besides myself knows how to make such chips..."  
  
"Doctor Wily..." Rock says, staring at the little chip.  
  
"Who's he?" Roll says, walking over to examine the chip herself curiously, but Doctor Light hands it to Rock gravely.  
  
"You might need this..."  
  
"Thanks Doctor..." Rock takes it and inserts it into his cannon.   
  
"What's going on here?" Roll asks, looking at both of them fiercely.  
  
"I have to go for a while Roll. It's gonna be dangerous probably."  
  
"Well let me go with you!" She sees both Doctor Light and Rock roll their eyes at this. "I may have a little girls body but I'm not just a little girl! I can help you!"  
  
"It's not about that Roll... I just have to do it by myself."  
  
Roll scoffs at this. "Fine... Go ahead and go get clobbered then." She turns and stalks out of the room in a huff.  
  
"Roll..." Rock stands there staring after her, then sighs in exasperation.  
  
"She can wait Rock. She'll be fine a little later. Right now we should concentrate on finding out about Wily's new robots, including how many he has."  
  
"Right..." Rock follows Doctor Light out of the room, heading for the main control room of the lab. He hoped Roll would be alright, Doctor Light was right, he had bigger concerns at the moment.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Underneath the water of a hydro-electric plant located at the edge of town, he lurks, watching the guard on patrol. Suddenly he leaps from the water in a huge wave, concealing him until the very last second when his fist strikes the guard, knocking him out cold on the floor.   
  
Bubble-Man turns and heads for the main control room of the power generator, the huge machinery being operated by the turbines moved by the water. "Lights out." He grips the main lever and flips it with a mighty shove. The entire plant goes dark, along with the entire city. Bubble-Man lifts his arm. "All done Doctor."  
  
Doctor Wily's voice comes through loud and clear. "Excellent. Stay there, I'm sending Metal-Man to back you up. Make sure nobody restores power to the city. Without it, the police will be defenseless."  
  
"Yes doctor." Bubble-Man turns as the contact breaks and heads back to the water to wait for anyone who might decide to play hero.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Rock and Doctor Light are examining the maps displayed on several computer screens when the lights suddenly go totally dead.  
  
"What's that?" Rock says, looking around in confusion.  
  
"Someone must have shut down the power plant... We have to get it operational again."  
  
"I'm on it Doctor." Rock turns and heads for the door, having little difficulty seeing in the darkness. He stops for a few moments to grab his helmet from the desk by the door, rebuilt after his first one had been lost underneath the waves at Wily's island.  
  
Mega-Man hits the streets, hopping in Doctor-Lights red car and hitting it into high gear, heading for the power plant. Suddenly something strikes the windshield, sticking there for a few moments flashing lightly. "What the?" He stares at it for a few moments before a whirring noise begins inside it.   
  
It detonates spectacularly, engulfing the entire car in a huge fireball. Mega-Man is thrown through the back windshield by the blast, landing hard on the gravel street, scraping his back painfully.  
  
"Yee-ha got a bullseye!" Mega-Man looks up at a figure standing on the roof of a small building, staring down at him. As he watches the figure leaps off the building, firing one object from each arm, which both end in cannons. The objects slam into the ground and embed themselves their, flashing just like the first one.  
  
"Agh!" Mega-Man leaps to his feet and jumps away just as they detonate, throwing him to the ground again, this time on his face and stomach.  
  
"Come on Mega-Man, I've heard such great things about you, don't disappoint me now." He fires two more bombs, which stick to the ground on either side of Mega-Man.  
  
"Fine..." Mega-Man leaps to his feet and leaps at the robot just before the bombs explode. The force of the blast throws Mega-Man toward the robot. His foot strikes out fiercely, knocking the robot back into a building while Mega-Man lands heavily on his feet, swaying slightly to stay up. "Who are you? Who sent you?"  
  
"I'm Crash-Man." He smirks a bit.  
  
"Doctor Wily built you didn't he?"  
  
"What was your first clue?" He fires another pair of bombs straight at Mega-Man's chest, forcing him to dodge to the side. The bombs fly past him and stick to the wall of a building.   
  
"No!" Mega-Man watches as the bombs detonate, blowing two gaping holes into the wall. The entire building shudders as the foundation is weakened and begins leaning to the side. The people visible in the windows looking around in confusion. "No!" He feels something impact his back, making him lunge forward before he catches himself. "What?" He feels his back in confusion and feels one of Crash-Mans bombs on his back.  
  
"Catch ya later, the Doctor wanted your head anyway." Crash man smirks and runs off.  
  
"Wait!" The bomb detonates, throwing him up against the still collapsing building, as well as putting a gaping hole in his back, exposing wires and circuitry. "Uhn..." He looks up just as the building comes down right on top of him.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
"Rock!" Roll runs up to the rubble and starts hefting the rubble out of the way as best she can. It's not easy as her body was a fraction that of normal adults, since she was designed as a kid. Doctor Light walks up behind her and watches sadly. "Rock where are you!" She continues to dig, growing increasingly worried as there's no sign of him.  
  
"Roll, we should wait for the police to arrive and help..." Doctor Light says softly, putting a hand on her shoulder.  
  
"Where is he!?" She says frantically, still digging in the rubble.   
  
"Roll..." He takes her and gently pulls her away from the rubble, her struggling weakly against him. "We'll find him, don't worry..." Roll just stares at the rubble worriedly as he pulls her away, unable to do anything to help her brother, unable even to cry over him.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Mega-Man slowly opens his eyes, his eyes having a hard time focusing. His power systems felt drained to the bare minimum. His back hurting him more than anything. He groans slightly and looks around him, trying to figure out where he his, his arms and seemed to be strapped to a table in the center of the room.  
  
"Ah, you're awake." Doctor Wily walks up to the table and looks down at him.  
  
"Doctor Wily... Why didn't you stay gone?"  
  
"I'm curious, your design looks familiar. That fool Thomas Light obviously built you, but something's different about you than the prototype." He looms over him, staring at him intently.  
  
"Well maybe he's just more of a doctor than you are."  
  
"We'll see." Wily smirks and turns away from him, where Crash-Man is waiting by the door. "Tear him apart, I want to see his pieces."  
  
"Yes doctor." Wily turns and walks out of the room while Crash-Man walks up to Mega-Man. "So should I do it the easy way, or the hard way?" He grins evilly and lifts his cannon, the bomb inside it clearly visible.  
  
"Mmm... I was just asking myself that same question." His hand draws into his cannon, bypassing the shackle around his left wrist. He raises the cannon quickly and fires, the shot tears into Crash-Mans chest, throwing him back against the wall. Mega-Man quickly reaches over to the control panel by the table and presses a few buttons, releasing himself.  
  
"Now..." Mega-Man hops off the table and approaches Crash-Man, ignoring the shooting pain in his back and the fact he could barely make himself move let alone fight. "What were you going to do to me... the hard way?"  
  
Crash-Man struggles to get to his feet, but stays on the ground, unable to lift himself up. "What are you going to do Mega-Man? Destroy me? In a fortress guarded by three other cyber-humans? That's suicide."  
  
"I'll manage." He raises his cannon and fires again, the shot penetrating deep into his chest and penetrating his core. He powers down and goes limp against the wall. "And thanks for telling me how many of you are here." He kneels down and removes Crash-Mans power chip, inserting it into his own cannon.  
  
He turns and heads out the door to the room, his cannon ready as he looks around him cautiously. Suddenly he turns a corner and sees a blue robot with a fan placed in his chest walking toward him.  
  
The robot sees him instantly. "You!"  
  
"Expecting someone else?" Mega-Man says as he dashes through the hallway away from the robot. He was in no condition to try to face anybody head on. He could hear the robot behind him giving chase.  
  
Mega-Man raises his cannon and aims at a wall beside him, firing off a Crash-Bomb as he passes, it blinking softly. It detonates just after he passes, sealing the passage behind him to the dismay of the robot who'd been caught in the blast. The ceiling caves in on top of him, burying him under the rubble. One down, there should be two more in the building, but he needed to get out of here and get repaired.  
  
Mega-Man turns and runs as fast as he can through the maze of corridors, searching for the way out almost desperately. He could feel his power reserves slipping slowly away from him with each second. Finally he gives up on finding his way out and starts blasting a straight line through the building with the Crash-Bombs. If he kept going straight, he had to reach an outer wall eventually.   
  
He reaches the outer wall, blasting a hole through it and looking out across the plains in dismay. He was in the middle of a desert, and VERY high up in a huge castle with the outside shaped like a skull.  
  
"Crap!" He slams his fist against the side of the hole. "What is it with Wily and huge fortresses?"  
  
"Going somewhere?" Mega-Man whirls and sees the robot from before right behind him, looking a bit beat up, but obviously not destroyed.  
  
"I was thinking about it..."  
  
"Let me help you." The fan in the center of his body starts spinning at a phenomenal speed, the wind generated enough to blow Mega-Man toward the hole in the side of the fortress.   
  
"Agh!" Mega-Man grabs the edges of the hole and hangs on as best he can against the wind which threatened to toss him out into the open sky. "Rgh..." He feels his power reserves slipping with every second, the strain of holding onto the walls were too much for him to handle in his weakened state.   
  
"Go ahead and go, I'll be out in a few minutes to pick up what's left of you."  
  
"Not today..." Mega-Man activates Quick-Mans chip and shoves himself away from the wall, running against the wind and gaining some headway. "RAAAGH!" He thrusts his cannon forward and fires, the plasma shot plunging into the fan, blowing it to pieces. The robot goes flying back into the hall, powering down even as he strikes the floor.  
  
Mega-Man collapses to one knee, panting heavily, his power systems feeling utterly drained by Quick-Mans chip. He hears a loud whirring sound from outside the hole in the wall, along with a familiar and welcome voice.  
  
"Mega-Man! Come on!" He turns and sees Roll in a hover van with the open door turned toward the wall. Mega-Man gets up and stumbles toward it as best he can, hopping inside as the door shuts behind them and they head away from the fortress.  
  
Mega-Man collapses to the floor as doctor Light kneels over him in the back of the van, Rolls voice coming from the drivers seat. "Will he be okay?"  
  
"I think I can repair the damage, but we need to get him back to the lab as soon as possible." Mega-Man tries to say something, but passes out on the floor of the van.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
He groans softly, turning a bit on a hard steel table. He hears voices from around him.  
  
"Mega-Man, can you hear me?" Doctor Lights reassuring voice says.  
  
"Please wake up Mega-Man..." Rolls worried voice chimes in.  
  
He opens his eyes slowly and looks up at them, his eyes focusing themselves eventually. He sits up slightly.  
  
"You're awake!" Roll grabs him and hugs him fiercely as he hugs her back and simultaneously takes stock of where he is. They're in a wooden shed of some kind, the lights and electronics in the lab itself still off.  
  
"You should be more careful Mega-Man. Your power systems were extremely low and I couldn't recharge them fully with the lights out. I had to use three car batteries just to get you conscious again."  
  
"I understand Doctor, I'll be careful next time."  
  
"Please let me go with you Mega-Man. I can help." Roll says, clinging to his hand tightly as he lifts himself up off the table.  
  
"Roll..." Mega-Man begins, but Roll had already turned to Doctor Light.  
  
"You can give me armor right? Like his?"  
  
"I'm afraid not Roll, that armor was specifically designed for his model body. Yours is different, it's not compatible."  
  
"But I can still help him. I can take one of the pulse rifles from the storage room!"  
  
"Roll!" Mega-Man grabs her and shakes her. "This isn't about firepower! I'm designed for this kind of thing!"  
  
"No you're not..." Roll says, looking him in the eyes. "You're designed to be my brother..."  
  
"And I will be your brother, once I make sure there are no more robots out there waiting to hurt somebody." He takes and hugs her tightly, she hugs him back just as fiercely. "I have to do this, then I'm gonna come back, and we're gonna be a family, just like we were meant to be. Okay?"  
  
"Okay..." Roll says, finally backing away from him slowly, still staring at his eyes. "Be careful... Rock."  
  
"I will. Count on it." With that he turns and leaves the shed, Roll and Doctor Light staring after him.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
The hydro-electric plant. Mega-Man goes inside slowly, his cannon ready. He looks around him, fully expecting an ambush of some sort. Suddenly a pair of saw blades strike the ground right next to his feet, embedding themselves deeply into it. Mega-Man quickly ducks behind one of the inactive turbines.  
  
"Like shooting fish in a barrel!" A voice comes from the other side of the room.  
  
"I've already taken down three of your buddies. Unless you want to join them, give up now." Mega-Man shouts back.  
  
"Well maybe so but you wouldn't dare use your famous plasma cannon here, you could hit a turbine and make this town PERMANENTLY dark."  
  
"So who are you? Saw-Man or something?"  
  
"The names Metal-Man. And that's nothing compared to Mega-Man, how lame can a name get?"  
  
"Well Metal-Man, care to see how much metal there is in your body?"  
  
"Big words blue-boy, let's see if you can back them up."  
  
"Yes, let's..." Mega-Man turns and thrusts his cannon outward, firing a Crash-Bomb at one of the turbines directly across from him. It soon detonates, taking the turbine with it. The screams from Metal-Man, who'd been hiding behind that turbine, sound throughout the room almost as loud as the explosion. Mega-Man walks over and looks down at him, lying on the floor, sparks flying from his body. "One thing you forgot, power plants can still function as long as they have one turbine."  
  
Behind him there's a huge splash in the water as bubble-Man leaps out and grabs him from behind, his arms locked around Mega-Man's throat.  
  
"Let's see what's inside YOU." Bubble-Man jams one hand into Mega-Mans back, which is still open from the bombing it had taken. The water from Bubble-Mans hand seeps into Mega-Mans systems, short circuiting several systems. He screams loudly as his systems go haywire.  
  
Mega-Man clutches at him desperately, trying to make him let go of his grip. Finally he powers up his cannon and lowers it, firing it at Bubble-Mans knee. The shot tears through the kneecap, tearing the lower half of his leg clean off. Bubble-Man screams and lets him go, falling to the floor clutching the stump of his leg.  
  
Mega-Man turns and looks down at him wearily, just raising his cannon and blowing his head off before heading up the little metal steps to the lever. He flips it and the remaining turbine starts moving, restoring power to at least part of the city. "There... Now maybe Doctor Light can fix me totally so I don't feel so cruddy..." With that done he turns and wearily heads for the exit to the plant. Stopping only a moment to fish out Metal-Mans power chip.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Doctor Wily examines the monitor that displayed the hydro electric plant. It had caught the entire battle on tape thanks to a remote uplink and independent battery. Again, Mega-Man was going through his robots one by one. Only Wood-Man, Heat-Man and Flash-Man were left. How was he able to do this? Was it the design model? If so... He should be able to take advantage of that himself...  
  
"Your orders doctor?" Flash-Man asked from his side.  
  
"Destroy that robot. Forget the rest of the city... Send Heat-Man and Wood-Man to finish him. If they don't do it, you do it."  
  
"Yes Doctor." Flash-Man turns and exits the room, leaving Doctor Wily staring at the monitor. He wouldn't let Mega-Man get off scot free this time, he'd planned for this. He wouldn't get away with ruining his plans again.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Mega-Man walks through the forest separating the hydro-electric plant from the rest of the city. The paved street winding its way through the forest. He stumbles a bit occasionally and has a slight limp, but he was still making pretty decent time.   
  
He stops as he picks up slight movement to his left, very miniscule, but he didn't feel like taking chances. Instead of looking for a fight he quickens his pace, hoping to just get away from whatever it was. Suddenly he's grabbed from behind by a mighty wood covered hand around his throat.  
  
"Grk..." Mega-Man clutches at the hand, trying to pry it off of him, but its grip only tightens around his throat.  
  
"Bad idea ignoring a potential threat." Wood-Man says, sneering.  
  
"I'll keep that in mind next time..." Mega-Man says, still struggling against both him and his low power reserves.  
  
"Well if there is a next time." Wood-Man laughs as he keeps even tighter hold of his neck, crushing it slowly.  
  
"You know... You guys all make the same fatal mistake with me."  
  
"And what's that?"  
  
"You never grab my arm." He fires one bomb straight down. It sticks to the ground right underneath both of them. "Wanna dance?" The bomb explodes, sending both Wood-Man and Mega-Man flying in different directions. Mega-Man hits the ground hard, gasping at the pain in his back, but gets to his hands and knees to look back for Wood-Man.  
  
Wood-Man gets to his feet almost instantly and glares at him evilly. "Big mistake little robot."   
  
"We'll see." Mega-Man raises his cannon and fires one blast. It slams into Wood-Mans face, blowing it completely apart. "Slow moving lummox... Ugh..." He holds his side a bit as he feels his power levels dropping even as he stands there. "Gotta get back to... Doctor Light's lab..." He turns and stumbles off down the street.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Roll stands outside the entrance to the lab, looking out across the streets worriedly. The power had been restored just recently to the lab, but there was no sign of Mega-Man anywhere. She was getting really worried about him. What if he'd been hurt, or worse, destroyed?  
  
"I'm going to look for him." She says determinedly.  
  
"Don't think about it. He'll be back." Doctor Light says, walking up behind her to wait with her.  
  
"He'd better... If he gets himself blown up I'm gonna be very upset." She says plainly, looking down the street now. "Hey... It's him!" She sees him limping along the street, holding his side weakly. "He's back! He did it!" She runs down the street to him.  
  
"Roll wait!" Doctor Light yells, sprinting after her toward Mega-Man.  
  
"Rock you're... AGH!" Gasps in pain as a streak of fire engulfs her.  
  
"Roll!" Mega-Man and Doctor Light scream in unison, running to help her. They both see a robot shaped like a lighter hiding behind one of the bushes along the side of the road, which is now on fire.  
  
"Barbeque time!" The robot yells, a sheet of flame erupting from its entire body to engulf him. He lunges forward suddenly like a huge fireball towards Roll, who's kneeling on the ground coughing up black smoke.  
  
"Roll look out!" Mega-Man runs up and tackles her, throwing her out of the way of the fireball just before it reaches her. Mega-Man lands with her on the street, keeping her from landing as hard as she would have, but scraping himself up a bit in the process.  
  
"Oh Rock... Are you alright?" Roll says worriedly, looking at him.  
  
Mega-Man smiles a bit at her reassuringly. "Sure. But you get back to the lab with Doctor Light while I take care of this guy."  
  
"Okay." Roll gets up and runs to Doctor Light, who leads her back to the lab.  
  
Mega-Man gets to his feet and faces the robot, who's already facing him, the flames spouting out of his body occasionally. "Alright, let's see how hot that fire burns."  
  
"If you want." He erupts into flame again and charges at Mega-Man, who fires a bomb at the ground and makes a giant leap, right over the fireball. He lands on his feet on the other side of the robot as the bomb explodes, catching the robot in the blast.  
  
Mega-Man stands up and turns around, walking toward the robot. "Goodnight."  
  
"Good day." The robot says, quickly getting to its knees and firing a stream of fire at Mega-Man.  
  
"Agh!" Mega-Man quickly lifts one arm to protect his face from the searing flames. He fires a few shots of his plasma cannon at the robot, but the flames around him flare up dramatically, dissipating the shots.  
  
"No easy outs here Mega-Man." Heat-Man says, smirking.  
  
"Let's see how you deal with something that doesn't melt." He raises his cannon again and fires three Metal-Blades. They all strike Heat-Man head on, embedding themselves into his body, sparks flying from the wounds.  
  
"Urgh..."  
  
"See you around..." Mega-Man lifts his cannon again and fires one blade. It streaks through the air, cutting cleanly into Heat-Man's forehead. He falls back as his systems power down.  
  
Mega-Man wearily walks over and extracts his power chip before continuing on to Doctor Lights lab.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Mega-Man opens his eyes again, feeling fully restored to top fighting shape. "Alright!" He hops up off the table and looks around at Doctor Light and Roll.  
  
"Oh I'm so glad you're okay... I was worried." Roll says, looking at him worriedly.  
  
"I'm fine Roll."  
  
Doctor Light steps up to him. "Mega-Man. Wily's in the town square with the mayor, making certain demands."  
  
"I'm on my way doctor. I'm taking the van."  
  
"I'm coming with you." Roll says, prompting both Doctor Light and Mega-Man to glare at her. "Not to fight, but he needs someone to drive the van right?"  
  
"I know how to drive Roll." Mega-Man says a bit perturbed.  
  
"Please... I need to do SOMETHING. Besides, you never know when you might need a pick up like at Wily's fortress."  
  
Mega-Man watches her for a few moments, then finally smiles a bit and nods. "Okay, let's go." Roll smiles and follows behind him as he heads through the halls of the lab. They reach the hover van out front and climb in, Roll in the drivers seat.  
  
The van takes off and heads through the sky toward the city square as Doctor Lights face comes on the screen in the dashboard. "Mega-Man, you might want to check the news."  
  
"Got it Doctor." He reaches and presses a few buttons, an image of the town square coming up quickly. Wily's standing on the podium with the mayor being held by another robot.  
  
"Now, I make my demands for me to leave at least pat of this city standing." He laughs cruelly and looks over the crowd. I want this city to be MINE."  
  
"He must not have realized the rest of his robots are all scrap." Mega-Man says, smirking.  
  
"Either that or he thinks that one robot alone can do it." Roll says simply, smirking along with him. "Guy must have a few screws loose."  
  
"What was your first clue?" Mega-Man jokes. They both watch the screen as a squad of police officers arrive and aim their pulse rifles at Wily.  
  
"Flash-Man, if you will." Wily says simply.  
  
"They might not need us after all." Roll says just before a bright flash lights up the van, coming from the screen. It disappears just as fast as it had come and leave Mega-Man and Roll looking confused. "What was that?"  
  
"I don't... Whoa!" He looks at the screen and sees the entire police squad on the ground, unconscious.  
  
"How did..." Roll echoes his confusion.  
  
Wily just laughs loudly at the confusion of the crowd gathered around him. "Now you've seen what I can do." He turns to the mayor. "Give this city to me or it will be more than just a bunch of guards that get it."  
  
"How far are we from the city square?" Mega-Man asks.  
  
"Less than a kilometer." Roll says.  
  
"Okay." Mega-Man moves into the back of the van and opens the door, looking down.  
  
"Be careful Mega-Man."  
  
"I will." He says before he leaps out into the open air. He falls toward the crowd gathered at the city center and powers up his arm cannon, firing a few shots at the podium as he falls. The shots blow pieces of the podium apart in big explosions, one shot catching Flash-Man in the shoulder. He looks up at his assailant.  
  
Mega-Man lands on one of the police cruisers and looks at Wily, raising his cannon. "It's over Wily! Give it up."  
  
"You have no idea what you're dealing with Mega-Man." Wily chuckles a bit and looks at Flash-Man. "Get him."  
  
A flash blinds Mega-Man just before he feels something slam into his face. He flies off the cruiser and lands on the ground hard just before another flash lights up everything. He finds himself flying through the air into a building, slamming hard into the brick wall. "Uhn..." He pushes himself off the wall just before there's another flash.   
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Roll watches this with a growing sense of panic. Her brother was thoroughly outmatched by Flash-Man. She had to do something, but how could she hope to fight a robot that could stop time? She quickly presses a few buttons on the dashboard. "Doctor Light, come in."  
  
Doctor Lights face appears on the screen quickly. "I know Roll. I've been monitoring the situation. I don't know how Wily's done it, but his robot's actually bending time."  
  
"What can we do Doctor?"  
  
"I don't know, this kind of technology should be impossible. In theory, any time travel devices should be disrupted by a random electron pulse, the reason they could never perfect it."  
  
"Energy pulse, like from Mega-Man's cannon?"  
  
"Yes I believe."  
  
"But he's already hit him with the cannon, it didn't work!"  
  
"Well then perhaps it wasn't strong enough, we need a stronger pulse."  
  
"Right... Hey..." She quickly starts hitting buttons on the control panel, searching. "Maybe I can use the vans systems to emit an electron pulse. Not enough to disable mechanical things, but just enough to disable a fragile time dilation system."  
  
"It's worth a try." Doctor Light says gravely.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
"Gagh!" Mega-Man slams into the ground, his body sparking all over him. "Rrgh..." He can feel his power systems draining even as he tries to get back to his feet. Doctor Wily's maniacal laughter ringing through his head.  
  
"Your winning streak is over Mega-Man!" Wily yells, laughing in glee as Flash-Man approaches Mega-Man to finish him.  
  
Rolls van hovers over them both. "Hold on Mega-Man!" An electrical spark flashes through the body of the van before pulsing outward in a huge wave of energy. Mega-Man gasps a bit as it passes through his body, not causing too much damage, just some discomfort. "Do it now Mega-Man!"  
  
"Nice try little girl! But you can't defeat Flash-Man with tricks!" Wily says, grinning. "Finish him off!"  
  
"Yes doctor." Flash-Man says, an electrical surge runs through his body, but nothing else happens. "What?"  
  
Mega-Man chuckles a bit as he gets to his feet, leaning against the wall. "Looks like you're out of juice. Here, have some of mine." He quickly raises his cannon and fires, striking Flash-Man square in the chest.  
  
"Grk!" Flash-Man stumbles back, his body pulsing with pent up energy. "What's... Happening to me?"  
  
Wily gapes at him in horror. "No! His energy level's getting too high! He's gonna self-destruct!" The crowd runs around in a panic, trying to get away from him.  
  
"Urgh... At least I'm taking you with me!" Flash-Man says, stumbling toward Mega-Man with difficulty.  
  
"I'm afraid not, catch your later." Mega-Man says, leaping upward to grab ahold of the door handle on the van as it turns and moves away from Flash-Man.  
  
"Noo!" Flash-Man screams as his body detonates, a wave of energy sweeping through the entire city. Mega-Man hops inside the van and shuts the door just as the wave hits it, making it shudder a bit, but it stays in the air.  
  
"We did it!" Roll exclaims, looking back at him grinning.  
  
"Thanks to you..." Mega-Man says, smiling back at her and leaning against the door of the van.  
  
"Should we go back and look for Wily?"  
  
Rock shakes his head wearily as he reaches up and takes his helmet off, shaking his head so his jet black hair fluffs out. "No, the police can take care of him now, let's go home." Roll nods, smiling and turns back to Doctor Lights lab.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Rock lies on the corner of the sofa, taking it easy as the reporters on the TV are frantically trying to relay the days events.  
  
"The attack on the city earlier today seemed to have been thwarted by one Mega-Man. The remains of eight robots were found scattered about the city. But their creator, Doctor Everette Wily, remains free."  
  
"Oh no..." Roll says from the foot of the couch Rock is on.  
  
"As long as he stays out of the robot building business, he can go where he wants as far as I'm concerned." Rock says, putting his hands behind his head.  
  
Doctor Light smiles at him from his chair. "Yes, you have done a great deal of good today Rock. Take it easy for awhile. You've earned it."  
  
"But what if he comes back? With more robots?" Roll asks.  
  
"Then I'll take care of them." Rock says simply. "After all, I do have one thing on my side Wily never will."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Justice." Rock says, watching the TV, not noticing Doctor Lights proud grin or Roll's half smile.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Doctor Wily stomps angrily through the tunnels underneath what had been his fortress. Twice now! Twice he had been defeated by this one robot! How!? It wasn't possible! The power this robot was capable of seemed limitless. It had to be the design... Well. He had his own robot of similar design.  
  
He walks up to a steel door and places his palm against a scanner. The door gives a soft click as it swings open and he goes inside. There on a table in the center of the room was a robot with a crude outer casing, where it's eyes should have been was a long section where the wires and circuitry were exposed.   
  
"We'll see how Mega-Man stands up to a robot of his own design." Wily says to himself, grinning, then slowly the laughter bubbles out of him, maniacal laughter that resonates through the tunnels long after he'd begun work on the robot.  
  
THE END  
  
WATCH FOR Mega-Man 3: The Prototype Reborn 


	4. Mega Man 3: The Prototype Reborn

Mega-Man 3: The Prototype Reborn  
  
  
He stood over the steel table calmly, looking down at the figure lying on top of it. His creation, the original and greatest of all cyber-humans.  
  
After two attempts to take control he'd finally realized his mistakes. He was using the newer models that were built for common work, but this... This was a war machine at its finest. Finer even than Mega-Man. Once Wily unleashed his fury upon the world, nothing would be able to stop him.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Rock sat upon the shingled roof, looking up at the stars dreamily. He often wondered just where the limits to his programming lay. He often found himself daydreaming about going to those same stars, something he'd told doctor Light about before, but he'd gotten only a gentle smile in response.  
  
"It's natural." He'd said calmly. "You want to explore."  
  
Rock sighed slightly at this. He did sometimes feel like he wanted to go somewhere, but he couldn't leave Doctor Light and Roll here alone...  
  
He couldn't help a small smile at the thought of his sister. She always tried to do things she knew Rock himself could do, but almost always failed. She blamed doctor Light for designing her as a child, but they both knew she really had fun. She understood Rock had been built for battle and needed his strength...  
  
If only he didn't have to fight, if only Wily had just left from the beginning he would never have had to don this armor... this destructive power. Nothing good could come from this cannon he had attached to his arm, only destruction.  
  
"Rock?" He looked down to see Roll looking up at him curiously, her childish voice floating up to him on the night breeze. "What are you doing up there?" She asked.  
  
"Just thinking." He replied, not really wanting to elaborate any further. "What's up?"  
  
"Doctor Light wants to see us in his lab." She told him. "A surprise of some kind."  
  
"Surprise huh? Last time he gave me one of those you popped up, is this one pleasant at least?"  
  
"Oh ha, ha." Roll replied, rolling her eyes wearily. "Men..." She muttered to herself as she went inside.  
  
When she was gone Rock slid easily down the shingled roof, landing on the balcony and heading inside without missing a beat. He loved having a sister, and he knew she liked having a brother. Sometimes Doctor Light joked that he'd built them too well, they even fought like siblings.  
  
When he made his way to the lab he saw Roll sitting out front, looking bored. "I thought he wanted us." He said.  
  
"He does, he wants us to wait a minute first though." She replied.  
  
"Swell..." Rock said, leaning against the wall to wait for doctor Light to summon them. They just waited in silence for a few minutes until Roll spoke.  
  
"What do you think it is?" She asked.  
  
"Beats me." Rock replied.  
  
"That's a first." Roll chuckled. He looked over at her and smirked at this.  
  
They both went silent as the door opened and Doctor Light smiled at them both. "Come on, I have something to show you." He said before heading back into the lab, leaving the door open for the two robots.  
  
Inside the lab a white blanket covered the table, causing rock and Roll to exchange a quick glance as Doctor Light positioned himself on the other side.  
  
"Rock, Roll, I would like to introduce my newest creation for..." He was cut off as something broke through the window at an incredible speed, slamming into his arm almost before either robot could get a good look at it.   
  
"Doctor Light!" They both screamed in alarm as the blast sent him hurtling into the back wall, where he slowly slid to a sitting position.  
  
"No!" Roll yelled, running over to kneel beside him, making sure he would be alright.  
  
"Take care of Doctor Light." Rock ordered before whirling to charge at the wall, leaping up as high as he could to grab hold of the windowsill.  
  
Immediately he pulled himself up and leapt out the window, grabbing hold of the edge of the roof to flip himself up onto it, whirling around and straightening up even as his left hand drew into his arm, revealing the plasma cannon.  
  
"Freeze!" He yelled, aiming his cannon directly at the figure standing in the center of the roof.  
  
Slowly the figure turned to look back at rock, his black visor reflecting the moons light eerily, his armor glowing with a soft crimson hue from the moonlight. A yellow scarf fluttered in the wind behind him.  
  
Rock lowered his cannon slightly, staring at the figure. "Who are you?" He asked. Without a word the figure turned and leapt from the building, vanishing into the night.  
  
"Wait!" Rock howled, trying to pursue, but he had no clue which direction to even look in, let alone go. "Damn..." He muttered darkly to himself as he scanned the darkness carefully, but came up totally empty.  
  
He turned his head slightly when he heard sirens approaching the lab. Roll must have called the police, paramedics. All of Rocks own power and enhancements, and he couldn't even protect Doctor Light in his own home.  
  
"I'll find you later." He swore into the night before turning to rejoin Roll inside the house.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
"Doctor Light... Please be all right..." Roll said worriedly as the paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher, carefully putting him in the ambulance. Silently rock put a steadying hand on her shoulder, watching as the ambulance drove off and out of sight.  
  
"Rock... what do we do?" Roll asked him.  
  
"You stay here." Rock aid firmly as he turned to head back into the lab.  
  
"What?" She asked immediately. "What are you talking about?"  
  
He came back out a few moments later, his helmet firmly on his head, obscuring his hair totally. "I'm going after that robot." He told her.  
  
"I'm coming with you." She replied immediately.  
  
"No!" He screamed at her loudly, shocking her into silence. He just stared into her eyes intently, cold as ice. "I'm going alone. I can handle it." He told her.  
  
"A... All right..." She said softly, backing away from him towards the lab unsure as he turned to walk off into the night.  
  
He stalked through the darkness determinedly, he didn't know yet where he was going, but he was willing to bet that robot wasn't through quite yet. He'd be back; then Rock... No... MegaMan could have a little interrogation.  
  
He perked up a bit when he heard a soft crackling sound from in the darkness somewhere. Someone was following him. Well, well, he was right.  
  
He whirled suddenly, raising his arm cannon to point it into the darkness, but nothing was there. He lowered it cautiously, looking about him. He could have sworn he'd heard something.  
  
A slight whirring noise alerted him to something flying at him from behind. He whirled quickly; narrowly avoiding a three-pointed ninja-star as it flew past his head, embedding itself into a nearby tree.  
  
"What the..." He said confusedly just before something hit him from behind, sending him plunging to the ground. He quickly whirled back to his feet again, facing his foe, but again encountered only darkness.  
  
"Show yourself!" He demanded loudly.  
  
"It is no fault of mine that you cannot see through the shadows that obscure your vision." A soft voice whispered from the darkness mockingly.  
  
"Who are you? Are you the one who attacked Doctor Light?"  
  
"I am the shadows in the darkness, the ShadowMan. I did not attack your creator, it was another." The voice whispered.  
  
"Who was it? Tell me and I will let you live."  
  
"Who was it..." The voice repeated back amusedly. "It was your own kin."  
  
"What!?" MegaMan shouted incredulously. "That's ridiculous!"  
  
"Is it so? Perhaps you just cannot see through the shadows of your own perception to see the truth." The voice said. Suddenly a shadowy blur appeared in front of MegaMan, striking out before he had time to react. The blow sent him hurtling against a tree heavily, gasping out in surprise.  
  
"Enough of this! Let's finish it!" He yelled into the darkness.  
  
"Very well, so shall it be." The voice whispered, the shadow seeming to coalesce in front of him again as ShadowMan struck, this time however MegaMan was prepared.  
  
He blocked the strike, countering with one of his own. ShadowMan simply dodged it however, flinging a star straight as his stomach, where it embedded itself into his armor.  
  
"Hugh..." MegaMan gasped out in surprise, putting one hand on top of it to draw it out of his body. While he was distracted his opponent struck again, his fist driving MegaMans head into the bar of a tree, sending his optical sensors haywire. Weakly he crumbled to one knee, panting heavily.  
  
"You've destroyed so many of my masters robots... Only to fall to one master of shadows." ShadowMan smirked triumphantly.  
  
"That's all I needed to know." MegaMan said as he straightened his leg, bringing his other one around to slam it into the side of his opponents' face, sending him to the ground heavily. Before ShadowMan could move MegaMan had his cannon pressed up against his head warningly.  
  
"Where's Wily, and who really attacked Doctor Light?" He demanded.  
  
"I told you who attacked your creator."  
  
"Lies!" MegaMan shouted angrily.  
  
"That you cannot see it as truth does not make it a lie." ShadowMan said, turning to look up at him seriously. "If you mean to kill me, then do it."  
  
"If you insist." MegaMan said darkly before letting the energy of his cannon discharge. The blast tore the side of Shadowmans face clean off, the body's power supply cutting off even as it crumpled to the ground.  
  
Wily was behind all of this. Then who was that robot that actually pulled off the attack? He didn't think it was ShadowMan, because he'd thrown stars; the attacker had used a plasma cannon.  
  
Silently he bent down beside the destroyed robot, digging out the energy chip that he knew every one of Wily's robots would possess. He had the power, now all he needed was the info...  
  
He would have to just look the old fashioned way; it was all he could think to do.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
The crimson figure watched MegaMan silently from his perch atop a nearby tree branch. He fought very well, but something felt amiss to him. Something felt wrong to him as he watched the blue figure continue on down the path. No matter what he felt though, he would just have to obey as ordered. It was all he could do.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Roll sighed a bit, rubbing her arms idly. It was boring and lonely being at the lab alone, she needed some company. Something to concentrate on besides her worry for Doctor Light and Rock would be welcome too.  
  
Idly she tried to force her thoughts to other things, like the covered bundle still sitting in the lab. For a few moments she contemplated seeing what it was. He'd been about to show them after all, he wanted her to know.  
  
So she headed into the back, opening the lab door slowly and stepping inside toward the table in the center of the room where both she and her brother had been built.  
  
Cautiously she lifted the blanket off the table, revealing a robotic, red-painted dog lying on it, still de-activated. A dog? She was a bit surprised it wasn't something a bit more... Advanced, but it was kind of cute in the way all dogs were.  
  
She smiled slightly as she reached out to pet its head, realizing yet again what a genius her father really was. She was convinced he could make absolutely anything if given the incentive.  
  
She pondered activating it for a moment, but gave up on that thought. She would wait for the others to get back, she didn't know anything about dogs and knowing Doctor Light it would behave exactly like a real one.  
  
So she replaced the blanket over the sleeping hound to wait once again for her family to return home.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
MegaMan exited the forest cautiously, looking about him to make sure there was nobody waiting in ambush. Knowing Doctor Wily, there would be a lot more than one robot waiting for him.  
  
He couldn't help thinking about what ShadowMan had said... His kin had attacked Doctor Light. He didn't have any kin unless you counted Roll, and he knew she was never even a suspect because she was in the room with him at the time. Plus he'd seen the attacker... It had looked a lot like him...  
  
He had to visit Doctor Light; maybe he could shed some light on all of this. Enough time had passed he was sure he was in stable condition at the hospital by now.  
  
Without warning a figure came whirling out of the trees, flying through the air gracefully towards MegaMan. When it neared it thrust one foot out, slamming it with incredible force into MegaMan's stomach, sending him flying to the ground.  
  
"What the..." He gasped out as he shoved himself to his feet. Already three more kicks slammed into his chest in the space of a second, sending him once again flying into the dirt pitifully.  
  
"Wily's I presume..." He muttered darkly, raising his cannon toward the figure only to have it slammed violently to the side in the next volley of spinning kicks, which sent him sliding across the dirt, kicking it up in droves.  
  
"Come on blue-boy. After all the trouble you've caused you can't go down so easily." The robot said gleefully as MegaMan got his first good look at him. He was mostly a tannish color, but on top of his head was what looked like a spinning top.  
  
"Not hardly." MegaMan replied as he back-flipped to his feet as quickly as he could, firing off a few shots from his plasma cannon at his attacker. The robot whirled like a tornado, blocking the shots with the soles of his feet, sending them hurtling into the ground or trees.  
  
"Try again." He said mockingly before lunging forward, sweeping MegaMans feet out from under him, then whirling fast enough to slam his foot into the back of MegaMan head before he hit the ground.  
  
"Uhn..." MegaMan grunted, pushing himself up to his hands and knees. It didn't help matters any that he was already weakened from his fight with ShadowMan. "You're fast... I'll give you that..."  
  
"You'll also give me your head." Wily's robot said, grinning maliciously.  
  
"Then come take it." MegaMan taunted, waiting for his opponent to whirl again. In a flash he brought his arm cannon around, firing off one shot just before the kick connected. The blast tore through the metal of his knee easily, sending his leg flying through the air as he howled in pain and fell to the ground, sparks flying from the severed stump.  
  
"Hurgh..." The robot grunted in pain, clenching his teeth furiously.  
  
"It'll take a better slave than you to take me down..." MegaMan panted, shoving himself to his feet before aiming his plasma cannon at his attackers' chest.  
  
"Don't take us lightly this time MegaMan." The robot sneered up at him.  
  
"Thanks for the advice." MegaMan said before firing one shot straight into his chest. His power cells drained almost instantly as his body went limp, the sparks flying from his chest for a few moments before those too died out.  
  
MegaMan stood over his foes still body for a few moments, thinking back to ShadowMans words. He wanted to find out what he meant by that, it didn't seem like a lie. What would he have to gain from it?  
  
He looked up in surprise as a soft flute filled the air with a soothing yet eerie melody, but he couldn't find the source for the life of him.  
  
"Who's there?" He demanded, looking around in alarm in the darkness as the last note of the melody ended. He was thrown forward violently, as something slammed into his back hard, sending him to the ground.  
  
"Hello brother." A calm voice said as something slammed hard into MegaMan's back, holding him on the ground.  
  
Almost instantly MegaMan realized who had him. "You're the one who attacked Doctor Light... Who are you?" He demanded, even though he knew he was in no position to demand anything.  
  
"I think you already know." The voice behind him said softly.  
  
"Who are you?" MegaMan repeated furiously.  
  
"My name is ProtoMan." The voice said. "I was the first of your masters creations." He said. "The one he abandoned."  
  
"He's not my master. He's my father." MegaMan said furiously. "And that's a lie. He would never abandon anybody."  
  
"It's the truth. He threw me away like a defective model. I still remember those few minutes I was activated during the unveiling of his accomplishments. After that, he shoved me aside to create you because I just wasn't good enough."  
  
"No, it's all lies!" MegaMan howled angrily. "Doctor Light would never abandon one of his sons!"  
  
"Because to him I wasn't a son." ProtoMan said. "To him, I was merely a defective prototype."  
  
"No! Shut up!" MegaMan howled just before he felt the barrel of an arm cannon pressed against the back of his helmet.  
  
"Goodnight... Brother." ProtoMan said quietly just before MegaMan felt his systems power down and he slipped into blackness.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Roll paced around the lab at an almost breakneck pace that would have caused any human to pass out long ago. She hadn't heard from either MegaMan or the hospital yet, and she was getting worried. Maybe she should just go ahead and drive to the hospital... Nah, she looked like a young girl, any cop would arrest her in an instant.  
  
When she heard the phone ring she was already on it before it completed its first ringing session. "Hello!?"  
  
"Is this the Light residence?"  
  
"Yes, this is Roll Light. How is he!?" Roll demanded quickly.  
  
"He's stabilized, but we'd like to keep him here for a few days." The voice on the other end of the phone told her.  
  
"A few days? Well... Alright... If it'll help him get better I guess." She replied.  
  
"We'll call immediately if there's any change in his condition." The voice assured her.  
  
"Right, thank you." Roll replied before putting the phone back on the hook. He was going to be all right, if out of action for a little while. She was at once both vastly relieved and disturbed by this. Of all the times for this to happen it had to be now while Rock was out fighting...  
  
She sighed deeply in disappointment. There was no telling how long she'd be here all alone, she hated being alone. With both Doctor Light and Rock gone, with no clue as to when they'd be back... She was alone... Unless she activated the dog...  
  
She instantly disregarded that thought. She would wait for Doctor Light's approval, no matter how long it took.  
  
Wearily she turned with a small yawn to head to her bedroom. It was past two in the morning and her power reserves were drained from all the excitement, she'd have to recharge until morning and decide what to do then. She just hoped Rock was all right.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
MegaMan grunted slightly as he opened his eyes, feeling his power reserves building themselves up as he'd slept. Why was he still alive? Why didn't ProtoMan finish him off when he had the chance? Well whatever the answer, it would be his biggest mistake.  
  
Wearily he sat up; looking up at the sun that was nearly directly overhead. He'd lost the entire night; there was no telling what Wily'd been doing while he was snoozing. He had a lot of time to make up.  
  
He leapt to his feet quickly, turning towards the hospital. First of all he'd ask Doctor Light about this ProtoMan. He had full confidence in his fathers moral judgement, but it would help him a great deal to hear him deny it outright.  
  
So he took off toward the hospital, walking past the people in the streets, who gave him a curious glance before moving on. They all knew who he was, nobody in this state didn't know, but they were still not used to the idea of cyber-humans.  
  
He stopped when he saw one of the light poles overhead flicker and come on. Curious, they were supposed to stay off during the day. Probably a glitch in the system or something.  
  
Suddenly he was thrown into the street, a surge of electrical power running through his systems as several cars had to swerve to avoid him, bringing traffic to a halt as everyone stopped to see what was going on.  
  
He got to his feet quickly, seeing another robot walking out of the alleyway confidently. Why did another of Wily's robots have to attack here with all these people present?  
  
The robot smirked as it touched its rod-like arms together, an electrical charge surging between them. "Come on." He said simply, grinning at MegaMan arrogantly.  
  
"Fine." MegaMan said, raising his cannon to fire a shot straight at him. The robot put its arms forward quickly; the power built up between them dissipating the shot before it reached him.  
  
"Wrong answer." The robot said, flinging its arms forward to hurl a bolt of electrical current at him. MegaMan quickly leapt over the bolt, sailing through the air to come down on top of the robot, kicking it in the face as hard as he could.  
  
"I've already beaten one ElecMan, I can beat another one!" He said, thrusting one leg forward mightily.  
  
"I am not ElecMan, I am SparkMan!" The robot replied as he caught MegaMans leg between his arms, the electrical current running through him like a power cord.  
  
"Then spark this!" MegaMan cried out as he brought his cannon forward; straining against the current that still pulsed through his entire body. He fired one plasma shot, sending it tearing through SparkMans chest plate and knocking him back, releasing MegaMan from the currents grip.  
  
"You're gonna fry blue-boy!" SparkMan howled with rage, putting his electrode-arms together as the energy built up between them.  
  
"I can't help but wonder how much power you can hold." MegaMan mused, aiming his cannon at a nearby light pole. "Let's find out." He said before firing one blast to disintegrate a section of the light pole, causing it to fall slowly to the side.  
  
"NO!" SparkMan howled as the current from the entire city flowed through the light pole and into him, overloading his systems in under a second. His metal body seemed to melt slightly before MegaMan finally walked over to blast the pole off of him, cutting off the power flow. SparkMan didn't even twitch; his systems too far gone to even power down properly.  
  
He looked over in surprise as the crowd of spectators started cheering for him loudly, many clapping or whistling their approval. MegaMan just saluted shortly in response, he actually liked this.  
  
Now though he had more important things to do than bask in their gratitude. He still had to get to the hospital. So he walked over to dig out SparkMans energy chip, which luckily wasn't too melted, before continuing on to the hospital as fast as he could.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Roll woke up from her restless sleep slowly, yawning a bit before finally shoving herself up from the bed. Things didn't seem any clearer in her mind than they had the night before.  
  
She made a quick sweep of the lab to see if Rock had returned home in the night, but fond no trace of him anywhere. He was still out... She was really getting worried. He'd never been gone this long before. What if he'd been hurt?  
  
No, she promised she would stay here. So she would. She would not take one step outside this lab until either Rock or Doctor Light returned.  
  
She couldn't take doing nothing anymore; she needed to do something. So she turned and headed through the halls towards the main lab where the dog still lay on the table, covered up. She couldn't resist activating it, Doctor Light would understand.  
  
She pulled the blanket off quickly before opening a compartment in its head, switching it on and closing the compartment again.  
  
The dog opened its eyes, looking up at her instantly. It barked happily up at her and licked her face.  
  
"Hey. Alright I'm happy to meet you to." She told him, taking one of his paws and shaking it. "I'm Roll, and you?" the dog just barked back. "Oh right, you probably don't even know your own name do you?" She sighed a bit at this. "Well you're not an ordinary dog, so Spot, Rover, and all those are out..."  
  
She put one hand to her chin thoughtfully to think of a name, but she also kept worrying about Rock. She just couldn't get that out of her mind. "I wish I were with him..." She said idly.  
  
Instantly the dog leapt off the table, grabbing at her dress with its teeth. "Hey, what's the rush?" She asked confusedly. Finally the dog got fed up and pushed itself between her leg so she was riding him. She sighed and smiled at this. "Thanks, but I don't think riding you would be too productive.  
  
She gasped in shock as its body seemed to reshape itself, the inner workings of it adjusting themselves automatically. "What's going on!?" She yelled just before they took off screaming through the halls. She held on as tightly as she could, squeezing her eyes shut.  
  
"STOP!" She howled, and was pleasantly surprised when she felt them stop. Cautiously she opened one eye, seeing them floating a good thirty feet in the air outside. "Whoa... What a rush..." She said to herself, blinking to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. The dog just barked in agreement.  
  
"You're really NOT an ordinary dog..." She said, an idea clicking in her mind. "I got it! You can be Rush, what do you think?" Rush barked back at her happily.  
  
She giggled happily back. "Okay then Rush. As long as we're outside, we can go find Rock!" The dog barked in agreement. "Okay, let's goooooo!" She cried, pointing ahead of them. Rush let out a matching howl as they took off streaking across the sky again.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
MegaMan walked through the hospital hallways determinedly, ignoring the stares he got from patients and doctor alike in his search for doctor Lights room. When he finally reached it he went in silently, closing the door behind him.  
  
"Uhn?" Doctor Light grunted a bit as he looked to see who'd come. "Rock, so good to see you. I was afraid you'd been hurt."  
  
"Same to you." MegaMan said softly.  
  
"Is something the matter?" Doctor Light asked worriedly.  
  
"What can you tell me about... ProtoMan?" He asked hesitantly.  
  
"ProtoMan?" Doctor Light replied in surprise. "He was the original prototype for all cyber-humans." He said, obviously not really understanding the question.  
  
"Then... It's true." MegaMan said. "You did just forget about him."  
  
"What? What is happening?"  
  
"It was ProtoMan who attacked you last night... He's out to get us because you abandoned him." MegaMan replied coldly.  
  
Doctor Light opened his mouth in surprise, but slowly shut it, his eyes turning remorseful. "I see... When I built him I never thought... I'm sorry." Doctor Light said. "I didn't think about him as I do about you and your sister... He was just the model for you..." He said softly.  
  
"What do I do? I can't fight him if he's not working with Wily... He's only fighting because WE hurt HIM." MegaMan said.  
  
"I don't know..." Doctor Light replied. Without warning the steel door to the hospital room flew inward off the hinges, forcing MegaMan to dodge to the side to avoid it.  
  
"Knock-knock." Another robot said as he stepped through the door, glaring at MegaMan menacingly. He was an almost pure red color; his forehead had what looked like a magnet engraved on it.  
  
"Scrap heap four come on down." MegaMan said, smirking to himself. "How many of you do I have to go through before you learn your lesson?"  
  
"As many as it takes to take you down, and that count ends here." The robot said furiously as it raised one hand.  
  
"Wha..." MegaMan said in surprise as he tried to raise his cannon, but his body felt like dead weight, he couldn't move at all. "What's going on?" He said.  
  
"You're going insane." The robot said as MegaMan watched his body turn of its own volition, he tried to fight it but there was nothing he could do as his hand pulled back into the cannon, aiming right at Doctor Light.  
  
"No!" He screamed furiously, feeling his cannon trying to fire. He fought as hard as he could, clenching his teeth tightly shut in concentration. He struggled like that for a few moments until the magnetic pull finally gave out, dropping him to his knees, panting in exhaustion.  
  
"Fool." The robot said contemptuously as he thrust one hand forward. With a startled exclamation MegaMan was sent hurling across the room, breaking through the widow without any difficulty. Quickly he managed to grab hold of the windowsill, barely keeping himself from falling to the ground far below.  
  
"Whew..." He sighed, allowing himself a second to rest before he began to pull himself back up. Suddenly his entire body was pulled back downward, halted only by his hands still desperately grasping the windowsill. "Urk..." He grunted, holding on with all his strength.  
  
"Give up MegaMan, you can't beat me." MagnetMan said from the window, looking down at him almost pityingly. He smirked to himself as he saw the force of MegaMan's grip beginning to tear pieces out of the windowsill itself.  
  
"I... Won't... Lose..." He grunted even as he felt the windowsill give way, sending him plummeting away from the window towards the ground. Suddenly he felt himself land on something, then go back up into the air. Curiously he turned his head to see Roll holding onto him. "Roll?"  
  
"Rock, are you okay?" She asked worriedly.  
  
"I'm fine..." He said, looking down at a red dogs head on the front of whatever was carrying them. "What's this?"  
  
"Oh, this is what Doctor Light wanted to give us last night." Roll said. "Rock, meet Rush." She said.  
  
"He built a flying dog..." MegaMan said ironically. "Well whatever works, we have to get back to the hospital, Doctor Light's still in danger!"  
  
"Right! Come on Rush, let's go!" She shouted. "Back to the hospital!" Rush barked in acknowledgment before turning and heading back to the hospital.  
  
MegaMan stood up carefully on the dogs back, careful not to fall off or push Roll off as he felt his internal systems shift, activating SparkMans power chip. Any magnet could be overcome by an electrical charge. At least he hoped so, if not he was gonna get crushed like a tin can.  
  
When they approached the window he leapt off quickly flying through the window and pointing his cannon straight for the red robot. He didn't even say anything before releasing a bolt of electrical energy.  
  
It slammed into the robot, throwing him against the wall as the power ripped through his systems. Quickly MegaMan fired again, the energy tearing through his systems until finally it shut itself down, the robot going limp against the wall.  
  
"MegaMan, you're alright!" Doctor Light exclaimed happily.  
  
"Yeah, thanks to Roll." He replied, watching as Roll floated through the window on Rush.  
  
"Doctor Light! You're alright!" She exclaimed as she hopped off the dog to run over to her father, hugging him tightly. "I was so worried."  
  
"It's alright Roll." Doctor Light said comfortingly, looking over at MegaMan as he knelt down beside the limp robot to remove his energy chip.  
  
"I'm going after Wily... I can probably use this to find him..."  
  
"What will you do about ProtoMan?" Doctor Light asked him.  
  
"Whatever I have to do..." MegaMan replied steadily as he turned toward Rush, looking down at him. Without another thought he climbed on the robot dogs back. "Let's go." The dog let out a small bark as it zipped through the window, heading out into the sky.  
  
"Rock... Be careful." Roll said softly as she watched them disappear into the blue-sky overhead.  
  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
ProtoMan watched his brother fly off with mixed emotions. He could have left his creator here and run, but he'd returned. Not only that, but Doctor Light had sounded sincere... Something wasn't right about all of this.  
  
He couldn't figure it out... Who was right here? Did Wily lie when he'd said doctor Light and MegaMan had both abandoned him? It had sounded like MegaMan didn't even know about him... Could he have been wrong?  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
They streaked across the sky quickly, leaving a large plume of smoke behind them. MegaMan had been able to discern the location of Wily's base from that robots energy chip by getting the magnetic feel of the land and comparing it to the magnetic flow of the continent. All he had to do now was get to the base and shut him down again, hopefully for good this time.  
  
Without warning they were bombarded by a string of needle-like projectiles from the ground. They dodged around them until one struck MegaMan in the side, embedding itself there painfully.  
  
"Ragh!" MegaMan yelled as he leapt off of Rush's back, flying through the air. He landed on the ground with a heavy thud, facing his attacker. It was a gray robot with needles sticking out of its head and cannons.  
  
"Don't you guys ever learn?" MegaMan asked as he gripped the needle, pulling it out of his side easily and dropping it to the ground.  
  
"Ignore this." The robot said challengingly, raising its cannons. Another volley of needles flew, looking like silver streaks in the air. Without saying a word MegaMan raised his cannon, releasing a magnetic wave which caught every single one of the projectiles.  
  
"I think these are yours." MegaMan said just before the needles whirled around, flying back at Wily's robot. He let out a loud gasp just before they slammed into him, tearing gaping holes into his outer shell. The sparks flew from him furiously as he fell to the ground limply.  
  
"I'm not in the mood for this." MegaMan said grumpily as he walked over to fish out his energy chip before looking up and seeing Rush flying above him.  
  
"Come on boy, we're almost there." MegaMan shouted as he leapt on the dogs' back to take off towards Wily's castle again.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
"There it is." MegaMan said as Rush descended to land in front of the castle. He hopped off the dogs back to approach the front gate, pushing it open slowly.  
  
On the other side he saw another robot waiting for him, this one silver and almost looked like he was made of diamonds.  
  
"Move, I'm not in the mood to play with you." MegaMan demanded, exasperated.  
  
"Watch your tongue, or feel the wrath of the Gemini." The robot said, smirking cockily.  
  
"I've taken bigger opponents than you, what makes you think you can beat me?" MegaMan demanded. Without warning the robot raised his cannon, aiming it straight at Rush. It fired a beam of light that struck the dog, sending him flying back out of the palace.  
  
"Rush!" MegaMan shouted angrily. "Big mistake buddy!" He yelled.  
  
"The come take us on." The robot said.  
  
"Us?" MegaMan asked just as the robot began to glow brightly, making MegaMan cover his eyes because of its intensity. When he was finally able to look back he saw two of them standing there, smirking at him.  
  
"You're out of your league." The one on the left said.  
  
"The GeminiMan has the fury of two." The one on the right finished.  
  
"Bring it on. I'll take you both!" MegaMan howled angrily, firing one blast. The twins both dodged to the side, returning fire.  
  
MegaMan whirled dodging them and returning fire on the one on the right. He dodged to the side as the other twin fired one shot, plunging it right into MegaMans side. While he was stunned the other twin leapt in, planting a solid kick against the side of his head and sending him to the ground heavily.  
  
"Damnit... I'm not falling to you." MegaMan said furiously as he raised himself up to his feet again, holding his side painfully. Suddenly a blast came out of nowhere to slam into the ground between them, sending up a shower of debris.  
  
"Two against one are terrible odds." A voice said, a figure slowly becoming visible as the dust cleared. "No way to win a battle." MegaMan gasped in surprise when he saw ProtoMan facing Wily's robots.  
  
The Gemini just smirked at him bitterly. "You traitor."  
  
"I'm just evening the odds." ProtoMan replied, raising his arm cannon. "So let's do this."  
  
"Yeah!" MegaMan said, running to stand beside his brother, facing the Gemini Twins on the other side.  
  
"You don't stand a chance against us!" The one on the right said, but both of them backed away slowly.  
  
"You know you can't beat us both." ProtoMan said simply. "You have the bodies of two, but the mind of one. You can't fight two battles at once."  
  
"I'll show you!" Both of the Gemini howled as they leapt at MegaMan and ProtoMan. The brothers easily overcame the Gemini Twins, throwing them to the ground beside each other.  
  
"Uhn..." GeminiMan grunted as he once again merged into one robot, kneeling on the ground weakly.  
  
"Pathetic." ProtoMan grunted, lifting his cannon. The blast tore straight through GeminiMans head, making him fall limply against the ground.  
  
"ProtoMan..." MegaMan said softly, looking over at his brother. "Thank you." ProtoMan simply smirked and turned to walk away. "Hey!" He shouted, but ProtoMan just ignored him and continued on his way.  
  
Without another word MegaMan turned to head into the castle, not looking back at ProtoMan.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
He entered the front chamber, looking about him cautiously. There would probably be more robots around somewhere.  
  
His suspicions were confirmed when another robot leapt from the upper floor, landing in front of him with a thunderous boom, causing the entire castle to shake to its foundations.  
  
MegaMan didn't even say anything, but merely opened fire on the robot. The blasts slammed into its chest forcefully, but they did little more than blacken the metal of its chest.  
  
"I'm gonna be harder than that." The robot told him, smirking as it slammed one fist into the ground, causing the entire thing to shake and throwing MegaMan off balance. Then it leapt into the air, coming down on top of him.  
  
MegaMan quickly rolled underneath it just before it came down, shaking the entire building to its foundations again. As MegaMan tried to regain his footing the robot quickly grabbed him by the neck, holding him against the ground.  
  
"Enough little..." The robot began before they both heard a loud cracking sound coming from the floor around them. For a moment they both stayed totally still listening before suddenly the entire floor caved in, sending them both hurtling downward.  
  
MegaMan slammed into the shallow stream, sending up a small tidal wave just before his opponent his the water, nearly sending the contents of the whole stream out of it.  
  
He sat up curiously to look around, a stream underground? He now saw it was actually the sewers that ran underneath the city. He knew this guy looked big, but punching a hole right through the steel pipes from the ground above it was one hell of a feat.  
  
Both combatants got back to their feet wearily, trying to regain their bearings after the fall. MegaMan took this moment to try and figure out a battle strategy. He was too outmatched in strength... But this thing was slow as an ox. He could probably use that...  
  
"Okay, come on." MegaMan said as he internally activated one of the energy chips. His opponent lunged again swinging one mighty fist, but he found nothing but air as his target leapt into the air, spinning furiously as he planted a good twelve kicks before he even hit the ground behind the larger robot.  
  
MegaMan kept on spinning, planting kicks that had increasing force behind them as he increased his rate of spin. The larger robot didn't even have time to turn and fight as MegaMan moved in a constant pattern, quickly wearing his opponent down.  
  
Finally MegaMan stopped spinning as his opponent dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach in pain. "Shouldn't mess with me." MegaMan told him before he leapt one more time, sending out a kick that send the robots head flying off his shoulders to land somewhere in the water.  
  
MegaMan landed, his spin ending as the hulking body of his opponent fell into the water limply, his systems failing.  
  
Quickly he made a mental count of the robots he'd beaten thus far. Seven... Could that be all?  
  
He started to climb up to the hole leading up to the castle before he heard a soft rattling from the water. It was probably just a snake, nothing for him to worry about.  
  
Suddenly something leapt from the water to slam into him from behind, locking one almost snake-like arm around his throat tightly.  
  
MegaMan let out a surprised howl as he was dragged off the wall. They flew back into the water, his assailant not letting go of his death-grip. Struggle as he might MegaMan couldn't break it.  
  
Finally MegaMan raised his cannon, firing one shadow blade into the arm around his throat, but it also sliced into his throat, not going deep enough to sever any vital systems, but it sliced a few wires.  
  
MegaMan lunged away from his attacker, finally turning to face him. A snake-like robot stared back at him, nursing his severed arm without even taking his eyes off of him.  
  
Wearily MegaMan raised his cannon, firing one plasma-shot right at this new foe. It seemed to slide right off of his slick skin, slamming into the wall of the sewer and blowing a chunk out of it.  
  
SnakeMan hissed furiously as he lunged forward; swinging his remaining fist in a wide arc as MegaMan leapt away from him, catching hold of the ground above them.  
  
"Goodnight." MegaMan said as he lowered his cannon to aim at the water, firing one Spark bolt into it. The electrical energy surged through the water, striking Wily's robot almost instantly. It surged for only a brief moment before he fell into the water, still.  
  
He dragged himself up out of the pit, pushing himself to his feet wearily. He was getting tired of this game; it was time to put Wily behind bars.  
  
He stumbled to the back room, finding Wily sitting calmly in a chair.  
  
"Our third meeting MegaMan..." He said calmly.  
  
"Our last meeting." MegaMan replied.  
  
"Indeed." Wily said as he brought out what looked like a bomb detonator.  
  
MegaMan recognized it instantly, putting up one hand disarmingly. "Hey come on now... Don't do anything rash..."  
  
"Farewell MegaMan." Wily replied as he pushed the button. Instantly the entire castle shook as the explosive charges detonated, taking out every support in the place.  
  
"Wily!" MegaMan shouted as the room crumbled down around them, the debris crushing Wily beneath it almost instantly. Just like that it was all over, there would be no more encounters.  
  
A light flute-whistle drew his attention as ProtoMan leapt into the building, blasting the rubble off of wily. "What are you doing!?" MegaMan shouted loudly.  
  
ProtoMan looked back at him only a moment before he grabbed Wily and lifted him to his shoulder. Then without another word he turned and leaps up to a gap in the wall, escaping easily.  
  
"Why..." MegaMan asked furiously. Why had ProtoMan betrayed him again? Silently he turned and left the room, taking off at a run as the building came down around his ears.  
________________________________________________________________________________  
  
He awoke the next day in his bed, his energy feeling extremely low. He couldn't remember what had happened after he'd left Wily's chamber. It didn't matter... Wily was still free and had ProtoMan with him.  
  
Wearily he got up off the bed, putting one hand to his head as he left the room, stumbling down the hallway. He could hear the TV going in the living room before he eve reached it.  
  
"Rock! You're okay!" Roll exclaimed happily, throwing herself off the couch to hug him furiously. "I was so worried!"  
  
"I'm okay..." Rock said as he held her comfortingly. "Though I don't feel too good mentally..."  
  
"Why not?" Roll asked him worriedly.  
  
"I didn't get Wily... He got away again..."  
  
"But..." Roll said confusedly, looking back at the TV. A news report was on.  
  
"Late last night a surprise gift was delivered to the police department. The nefarious Doctor Albert Wily was dropped off unconscious on the front steps."  
  
"What?" Rock exclaimed in surprise.  
  
"You didn't do it?" Roll asked him confusedly. "Then who brought him in?"  
  
Rock knew instantly who'd brought him in, the only person who could have. He couldn't help a small smile that crossed his lips at this realization.  
  
"Don't worry about it." Rock told her softly, moving away from her toward the back door. Roll just looked after him with a very confused look on her face.  
  
He walked up a small hill dotted flowers as the sun shined down on the bright green grass. Silently he stopped and looked around. He was close, Rock could feel it.  
  
"Thank you ProtoMan." Was all he said. At that moment a soft wind blew across the field, carrying with it a small but haunting tune from somewhere in the distance.  
  
THE END  
  
AUTHORS NOTE: I'm sorry it's impossible to describe just what tune is being played on the whistle in a written story, but any true MegaMan fan should know it by heart. 


End file.
